


Sanctuary

by ketabat



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Development, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father Figures, Gay Billy Hargrove, Homophobic Language, Lack of Communication, M/M, Masturbation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Season/Series 02, Protective Jim "Chief" Hopper, Protective Steve Harrington
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2020-08-09 21:38:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20124253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ketabat/pseuds/ketabat
Summary: Billy leans back in his seat and smacks his steering wheel as he looks at Hopper from over his Ray Bans. “What can I do for you, chief?” He asks, putting on the politest tone a guy like Billy Hargrove can muster.Hopper crosses an arm over the top of Billy’s Camaro. “You can start by telling me who you’ve been grappling with” he says, gesturing for his face.aka a billy hargrove centric fic bc he deserved better.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is 100% caused by the hopper/billy scene we were robbed of. Billy's one of my all-time favourite characters and I think mr and mr duffer made a huge mistake killing him off (esp without a redemption arc). so. this is a product of bitterness.
> 
> a very special thank you to [Deep_South](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deep_South/pseuds/Deep_South) for patiently putting up with the mess that is my writing and fixing all the mistakes. you're the real mvp.

So, here’s the thing.

Hopper’s a policeman. He’s trained in his field. He arrests the bad guys. He brings justice to Hawkins. He tries bringing _peace_ to Hawkins. Even if that means pulling an owl out of Eleanor Gillespie’s hair, or trying to fix Holly Wheeler’s bicycle when he found her crying on the side of the road with the bike streamers held in a sad, tight grip.

But,

He’s also a father. He’s not quite as trained in _that_ field as he is in his profession. But several months after he adopted Eleven – _Jane_ – he found out there’s not that much of a difference between being Hawkin’s police chief and being a dad. Punishments were a mutual thing. House arrest and grounding, for example, are pretty similar. Trials? They’re like what Joyce calls them… heart-to-hearts. Prison is curfew… et cetera et cetera.

As absurd-sounding as it is, he wasn’t always so strict. He was young once upon a time. He was wild and reckless. He enjoyed hook-ups, still did before El became his responsibility. He drank and got high and drove like a fucking maniac.

Maybe that was why he could never be callous to Billy Hargrove. Because that Hargrove kid, in some fucked up way, he reminded him of his younger self.

…

Hopper doesn’t buy Billy’s excuse the first time he sees him all bruised up and bloodied.

He pulls him over for speeding and doesn’t exactly have the chance to tell him off because his words fail him the second he leans down to let him off with a warning. Billy has his shades on, hiding away the black eye, but there’s no concealing the busted lip or the bruise blossoming across his cheek.

Billy leans back in his seat and smacks his steering wheel as he looks at Hopper from over his Ray Bans. “What can I do for you, chief?” He asks, putting on the politest tone a guy like Billy Hargrove can muster.

Hopper crosses an arm over the top of Billy’s Camaro. “You can start by telling me who you’ve been grappling with” he says, gesturing for his face.

Billy doesn’t eschew the question. Instead, he aims a wolfish smirk in Hopper’s direction. “Some toff back at the station” he shrugs a casual shoulder.

“Yeah?” Hopper asks, clearly humouring him. “Why?”

“’Cause of a girl,” Billy answers in a heartbeat. It’s a reflexive answer. Repeated and practiced. And Hopper’s done a body language course. It was mandatory for his field. He knows Billy’s lying. Sees the way his hand clenches a little tighter on the steering wheel and the way a muscle in his jaw flickers even as he keeps up the fuckboy front, regarding Hopper with light-hearted nonchalance. “You know how nature works, Hop” he waves a hand, “chicks fuck the strongest opponent.”

Hopper hums evasively, squinting as he peruses Billy thoroughly. He makes a mental note of everything that counters the lies Billy’s blurting. But he stays silent about them, knocking on the top of the Camaro as he straightens up. “I’ll let you off this time, kid,” he says. “Drive slowly.”

“Sir, yes, sir” Billy gives him a two-fingered salute, smirk unbudging. Then he’s zooming off, turning the radio up to drown out Hopper’s angry _‘I said slowly!’_.

…

The second time Hopper sees Billy, he’s being guided into the station with a hand on his neck and his hands handcuffed at his front.

He flops down in the seat opposite from Hopper, waves a hand and making the cuffs jingle. “Got a smoke, Hop?” he asks casually, like he wasn’t caught red handed.

Hopper heaves a sigh, leaning forward with his hands interlaced atop his desk. “You’re not old enough to be smoking” he says, blinking blandly at Billy.

Billy rolls his eyes, reclining in the chair and pushing his legs forward to cross them at the ankles. “Spoilsport” he mutters under his breath.

“You gonna tell me what happened?” Hopper asks, tilting his head to the side.

“Nah” Billy answers, “I’m sure the loser virgin who escorted me in can tell you _alllll_ about it” he licks his lips and starts whistling as he surveys the walls with no actual interest.

Hopper’s lips twitch, but he reins in the surfacing smile and stands up, pushing his chair back before rounding the desk and leaning back against the front of it. He crosses his arms over his chest silently. “How’s your pops?”

Billy slides his eyes back to Hopper, sniffles as he shrugs again.

“Does he know you’re out painting the town red?” Hopper prompts. He’s trying to get a reaction out of him. It’s obvious and not lost on Billy, who gives a slow smirk, leg bouncing.

“You threatening me, Hop?” he questions slowly, in a monotone that has Hopper lifting his hands in defence. He keeps a straight face, waiting for Billy to slip, to let it out, to say _something_ that isn’t an absolute fucking lie. “What? You think you have everything figured out? You open my Cali record and now I make sense to you?”

Silence ensues, the tumult outside the office the only thing audible over the sound of Billy chewing his gum.

Hopper reaches behind him for a key and quietly undoes the cuffs on Billy’s wrists. Billy rubs at the soreness of his skin, hides his arms when Hopper sees the cigarette burns marring his forearms.

Given the sudden defencelessness in Billy’s eyes, he wasn’t the one putting out his cancer sticks on himself. Hopper reaches for the cigarette tucked behind his ear and hands it over to Billy, who takes it without preamble and wraps his lips around it.

He pats himself down, then pulls his zippo out and looks up at Hopper as he brings it up to light it. “You gonna fine me for drunk driving or what?” he asks, the cigarette wagging with his words. He takes a drag and pulls it out with a grimace. “This is some cheap shit” he grouses, eyeing the cig.

Hopper eyes him for a few moments. Then, after an extra pensive second, he opens his mouth, “What’s goin’ on at home, kid?” his voice is considerably softer, still hoarse with smoke. But kinder.

Billy falters, lags for no more than a millisecond before he’s throwing his head back with a loud, throaty laugh. It sounds psychotic and ridiculing, but most of all, there’s a sort of pained edge to it. And it somehow makes Hopper soften even more. “Oh, I get it,” Billy says through laughter, takes another lungful of his coffin nail before putting it out on the armrest of the seat he’d taken, “you wanna know why I’m so fucked up? Wanna what? _Talk me down?”_ he pauses to smirk and lean forward for dramatic effect. His voice drops as he goes on, “wanna _make me a better person?_” he traces his upper row of teeth with his tongue.

Hopper lifts a finger, ready to preach about respect but is rudely cut off by Florence ushering the other kid through the door. “Flo, what did I _say_ about _one at a time?_” he says instead, loud and gritted.

Florence looks at him for a few seconds, then turns tail without a single word, clearly not wanting to deal with his shit at this time of the night.

Hopper lifts a hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose tiredly. “Hey, chief” Harrington greets, unaware of how _done for the day_ Hopper feels right now. “I was with the kids and my shift just ended but the shitheads kept nagging me to ask you if you’d let El hang out sometime—” Hopper lifts his head to glare at Harrington, effectively shutting him up.

Steve’s lips part around silence as he shifts from leg to leg for a few moments, then he lets out a nervous laugh. “Or not” he shrugs a shoulder.

Billy’s watching the scene unfold with an amused glint in his cerulean eyes, fingers locked on his midriff and legs stretched out before him.

Hopper half sits up on the desk as he scrapes together what’s left of his will to breathe, then raises a hand, pressing the tips of his thumb and forefinger to each other. “You tell them—” he says deadly quiet, “especially the _Wheeler kid_” if the sudden drop of his voice as he utters Mike’s last name is anything to go by, Hopper isn’t really fond of Mike, “you tell them I said _N—_”

“Hey now, Hop” Billy murmurs in interruption, his voice is so low it’s almost a _purr._ “Let her hang out with her weirdo friends” it’s the most civil Billy has been since he was brought in. “Y’know the saying, birds of a feather…” he trails off, giving Hopper the chance to finish it off. When Hopper makes no move to carry the quote on, Billy snaps his fingers. “Flock together.”

Steve’s eyes are on Billy, like he’d just noticed he was sitting there. “Can’t believe I’m agreeing with this asshole but—” he comes to a sudden halt and looks back at Hopper. “Wait, did he just call you _Hop?_”

Hopper takes in a deep, grounding breath. “Alright, both of you go home” he runs a hand down his features tiredly.

Billy starts griping about his car keys being taken away by one of Hopper’s officers.

“Harrington will drive you. _Go. Home._”

Steve rolls his eyes, combing his fingers through his hair. “Look, chief, I’m just here for the kids—”

“I’ll _think about it!_” Hopper snaps. He stands up and places one hand on Billy’s nape and the other on Steve’s.

“You have serious anger issues, Hops” Billy sighs as Hopper guides them both out.

“First Hop and now Hops?” Steve sounds utterly betrayed.

Billy can’t hold back his grin as he side-eyes Harrington.

…

“Y’know my place is the exact opposite direction we’re going in right now?”

Billy turns his head to eye Steve’s profile. “Yeah so?” He says after a moment. “You inviting me for a quickie or what?”

“No—” Steve pauses, contemplative, then shakes his head and blinks. “_No,_ I’m just sayin’, I’m going out of my way here.”

Billy still looks somewhat bewildered, scarred brow arched and lips parted. “So…you want me to clap or somethin’?” He eventually drawls out.

Steve sighs. “No, you can start by getting your foot off—” he reaches over and slaps Billy’s shin. “The glove box.”

Billy, quite surprisingly, does as told.

“And now you thank me for giving you a ride.”

“Don’t push it” Billy laughs, lolling his head to look out the window.

Steve smiles despite himself, drumming his fingernails against the steering wheel. “What did you do?”

“Huh?”

“Why were you at the station,” Steve puts across. “I’m sure you weren’t there to puff on a cig and chinwag with chief Hopper.”

Billy tamps down his own smile by swiping his tongue over his lips. He doesn’t answer though. Just closes his eyes against the low murmur of Scorpions’ _Still Loving You_ coming from the radio until they reach the Hargrove residence.

Billy gets out with a quiet ‘c’ya around’, manages a few steps away from the car before he turns around and walks back over to lean down and peer at Steve. “Thanks.”

Steve looks at a loss for words, and by the time he vocalizes a ‘no problem’, Billy’s already at his front door.

…

_Feelings_ were never really Billy’s thing. He’s always regarded them as a weakness, taught himself to smother them with cold-blooded cruelty.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel the _loss_ of a certain emotion. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel the drop of his heart when he steps into the so-call solace of his house, and the sinking sense of comfort he didn’t know he had in _Harrington’s_ presence.

He can hear the booming of the news coming from the living room and the sound of utensils clanking from the kitchen, so he seizes the opportunity and tries to slink up to his room unnoticed.

Luck isn’t on his side today, he thinks when the volume of the TV lowers and Neil calls out for him.

Billy takes a breath, digs his nails into the palms of his hands before following his father’s voice. He stops at the entryway. “Hey, dad” he greets, pumping as much respect as he can amass into the two words.

Neil doesn’t look away from the TV as he gestures for the sofa. “Sit down.”

Billy does as told without a second thought.

His father doesn’t draw his eyes away from the screen for another few minutes, but when he does, they’re truculent as they settle on Billy. “Do you know what time it is?”

Billy swallows, shrugging a shoulder. “’Bout eleven?”

“About eleven,” Neil nods his confirmation. “And do you know what time dinner is?”

Billy opens his mouth to defend himself, but his words die on his tongue when Neil repeats the question a little stricter. “Seven” he says instead, quiet. “Dinner’s at seven.”

“That’s right” Neil nods. “And what did we talk about last week?”

Billy’s jaw ticks, leg bouncing irregularly at the memory of _last week._ “Punctuality” he responds.

“Punctuality” Neil echoes, reclining more comfortably in his seat. “Give me your keys.”

Billy’s fingers twitch instinctively, then falter when he remembers he doesn’t have them. Just when he thought the day couldn’t get any fucking worse. “I don’t have them” he answers.

“You don’t have them?” Neil blinks.

“No, sir” Billy rasps.

Neil takes a breath, drumming his fingers on the armrest as he eyes his son. “You been bending the law again? What did—”

“No, sir” Billy cuts in, “I was just—” he doesn’t have the chance to finish that sentence off, a hand twisting the front of his shirt in the span of a blink as his father looms over him, eyes smoldering into his.

“Don’t. Interrupt me” he whispers, the smell of alcohol in his breath fanning against Billy’s cheek.

Billy gulps dryly, nodding.

“Now, you’re going to take your faggot ass down to the basement,” Neil says quietly, “and think about the consequences of your actions. I’ll be expecting an apology tomorrow morning, am I understood?”

Billy nods breathlessly.

“_Am. I. Understood?_”

“Yes, sir.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Billy feels weird that he’s only known Joyce Byers, the most fidgety person alive, for less than five minutes and he still feels more comfort around her than he does around anyone else in the room. He licks his lips, turns to look at Joyce, whose eyes are measuring him intently in a hope she’d get her finger on what she finds off about him. “So, need help with the lasagna, ma’am?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 2!
> 
> I feel the need to emphasize on a point (due to the barely-existent harringrove interactions in this chapter), this is a billy-centric fic. there will be plenty of billy/steve in future chapters but I'm trying to keep it low right now to get the hang of his platonic relationships (esp with jim/neil/joyce..etc etc) 
> 
> enjoy! :)
> 
> ...

“Morning.”

“Good morning” Susan answers with a mellowvoice. Billy’s painfully aware of how she doesn’t look away from the stove, refusing to look him in the eye because she _knows_. She knows that while she was sleeping in the blissful warmth of her bed, he was down in the basement, pillowed on the concrete of the floor and blanketed with his own flimsy jacket.

He doesn’t hate her. And he certainly can’t blame her for her feigned oblivion. After all, she’s not his mother. She’s _Max’s_. And if having Billy over a barrel keeps her and Max safe from Neil’s wrath… Well, that was just a risk she was willing to take.

She used to try talking Neil down whenever his anger turned physical. Or at least tried to break the ice. But she stopped after a particular accident that had Neil aiming a deadly glare her way.

Billy clears his throat and blinks himself out of his thoughts, drawing his eyes to his father. “I thought about what you said” he says. Neil doesn’t so much as glance his way, licking his thumb to turn the page of today’s newspaper.

“And?”

“And you were right,” Billy responds, “I’m sorry.” His tone is, as per usual, a routinized monotone.

A hum is all he gets in return. So he sits down soundlessly, thanks Susan like the polite kid he is when she places his plate in front of him, and eats without a single word. Maxine joins in just as he takes his last mouthful. He stands up, takes a hold of his plate and walks over to the sink to rinse it.

“I can’t drive Maxine to school today” he states. “Car’s impounded and all.”

“It’s okay” Max rushes to say before Neil could beat her to it. “I’ll take the bike.”

Billy looks at her for a moment and notes the way she fidgets nervously in her chair. _Meeting up with the freaks,_ he deduces. He lets his gaze linger long enough for her to know he knows, waits for panic to cross her features, then he nods his head and takes leave.

...

He skips school in favour of picking up the Camaro. And he’s relieved Chief Hopper isn’t at the station to begin questioning his _emotionally unhinged_ ways.

He drives around to clear his head, makes a stop at the gas station, and arrives at Max’s school on time.

He doesn’t listen to her excuse as to why she’s three minutes late, the ache in his temples throbbing with each syllable she utters. “Um, hey, I was wondering if you could—”

“No” Billy interrupts, plain and brusque.

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“I’m not your fucking driver, Maxine” Billy hisses.

“I _know._ But the gang’s playing D&D tonight at Will’s and El will be there and she like, really hates me and isn’t allowed to hang out with us much so this is—” she cuts her rambling off with an exasperated sigh when she realizes Billy won’t be sympathetic about it. “Neil said—”

“I don’t give a _fuck_ what Neil said” Billy lashes. It draws a small sound from Max and has her recoiling. Billy swallows, glances out his window with a deep breath. “Don’t be a pussy and go using him against me to get what you fuckin’ want.”

Max’s voice is considerably lower when she speaks this time. “That’s not what I was doing” she’s twiddling her thumbs, and once he pulls over in front of their house, she turns in her seat to grab her skateboard, then looks to Billy, mouth opening and closing like she has something to say but can’t find the right words.

“Get out.”

She hovers for a moment before doing as told, then she leans down to look into the window, squarely at him. “Just a little advice…” she starts, pointedly ignoring his acidic glare, “stop taking your anger out on the wrong people then wondering why no one gives a shit about you” she finishes. Her voice wavers, her tone is weak, but that doesn’t do anything to muffle the potency of her words. Billy feels them like a scalpel to a healing wound.

She doesn’t hang around to hear his response, just storms off without looking back.

...

He gives up with a huffed breath five minutes before the appointed time of the get-together, climbs out of bed and swings his door open to walk across the hallway to Maxine’s room.

He knows she’s probably sleeping her annoyance away, so he slams his fist extra hard on her wooden door and calls out a straight-to-the-point _if you’re not in the car by eight fifteen forget about it, freckleface._

He hears her jump out of bed, allows himself a fond eye roll before he’s off to the car.

True to _his_ words, she’s in the car at the stroke of eight thirteen.

“Thank you” she says once she’s comfortable. She doesn’t look at him though, maybe feeling somewhat guilty about her sharp-tongued words earlier that day.

He doesn’t grace her with a response, instead tells her to give him directions.

He comes to a skidded stop near the Byers’ home. “Nine sharp, Maxine” he says. “If you’re not out—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know” Max interrupts with a blasé tone. “See you then.”

“Can’t fuckin’ wait” Billy drawls. She scurries out and straightens her clothes before knocking on the door.

He shakes his head once she’s inside and reclines in his seat, reaching into his breast pocket for his Marlboro reds.

He slides one between his lips, exhaling from his nose shakily as he pats himself down for his lighter.

A knock on the glass of his window startles him, has him jerking and letting out a gritted ‘jesus fucking christ!’ around the smoke.

He takes a sharp breath through his nose and lets it out from his lips to calm himself as he rolls the window down.

“You must be Billy.”

Billy clears his throat, pulling the unlit cigarette out of his mouth. He’s a piece of shit but he still has the decency to _act_ respectful around older people. “That’s me,” he grins charmingly, “you must be Mrs. Byers” he sticks a hand out the window to shake hers.

She, unlike Mrs. Wheeler, _looks_ like a parent. She’s pretty in a messy way, with kind eyes and a sweet smile that gives him a twinge of nostalgia. Her voice lacks the bogus croak Karen gives her own voice when she lets her eyes linger on him hungrily.

Her hand’s warm in his, gentle and genuine and Billy feels beyond exposed under her hostly friendliness.

“You’re Maxine’s brother, right?” She asks, not really wanting an answer. Billy bites back the snarky — and quite trivial — _stepsister_ hot at the tip of his tongue. “It’s a little chilly out here” she rubs her hands together to emphasize her point, “how about you come in? I made lasagna— well, _I_ didn’t make it. Will and Jonathan did— a week ago. I just put it in the freezer” again, she doesn’t wait for an answer, stepping back and pulling his door open.

“That’s real nice of you, Mrs. Byers but I gotta get home, I’ll drop by at—”

“Nonsense!” She exclaims, stunning him to silence. “Come on out. _And gimme that_-” she snatches his cigarette. He half expects her to throw it aside, but she just tucks it behind her ear with an eye-crinkling smile.

Billy’s reputation feels oddly at stake when she links her arm through his and guides him to her little house. And he’s knocked off kilter when he finds Jonathan and Nancy huddled up on the couch watching some trashy romcom. Even more so when he sees Harrington sprawled on a couch of his own, idly eating popcorn like it’s to pass time more than it is to snack.

“Mrs. Byers, I think I—” he starts to find a single excuse to leave, unwinding his arm from hers. He can’t be here. He just simply, and quite difficultly, can’t.

Three pairs of eyes turn to him and Billy feels _bare._ Feels as if he’s an invisible outsider who suddenly materialized for all to see.

Nancy and Jonathan draw apart, as though Billy’s mere presence sucked the comfort out of the living room.

Steve stops eating, wipes a hand over his lips and sits up.

Mrs. Byers — Joyce — looks between the lovebirds, Steve, and Billy, head tilted in confusion. “Am I missing something here?”

Nancy opens and closes her mouth. “I—” she shares a quick look with Jonathan. “Billy just..” she waves a hand. She really has no idea what to say and to be frank, Billy doesn’t blame her. She doesn’t know much about him save for the fact he’s a popular douchebag who never turns down the opportunity to bash someone’s face in. But her eyes turn to Steve in searching of any discomfort since Harrington _was_ the last victim to Billy’s messed up ways.

“Wasn’t at school today” Steve finishes off. He looks at Billy, lifting a brow. “You know that can seriously affect your attendance, right?” he asks dumbly.

The tension eases in a second. Jonathan pulls Nancy against him again and Steve scoots over. “I’m sure Sixteen Candles isn’t your _thing_ but,” he waves a hand, leaving Billy’s options open.

Billy feels weird that he’s only known Joyce Byers, the most fidgety person alive, for less than five minutes and he still feels more comfort around her than he does around anyone else in the room. He licks his lips, turns to look at Joyce, whose eyes are measuring him intently in a hope she’d get her finger on what she finds off about him. “So, need help with the lasagna, ma’am?”

...

When the kids reemerge from the basement, Joyce and Steve both say something about _manners_ and _don’t stand there looking like you’ve just seen a ghost_ when they jerk to a stop and stare at Billy like he’s grown a second head.

Billy can’t stand it. _Hates it._ He knows it isn’t the case, but he feels like the wall he’s built around himself is coming down brick by brick.

And his hatred towards those around him? The cruelty of his words regardless of age and gender and feelings? He wears that like a layer of skin. Impenetrable and thick and briery.

He aches with the knowledge he’s letting his guard down. So he takes his plate and excuses himself with a curt ‘I’ll lose my appetite if I look at you for too long. gon’ eat outside.’

He sits down on the porch, eating quietly. Joyce joins him a little later with a can of coca cola. She doesn’t say anything for a long time, then she pulls the cigarette out from behind her ear and hands it to him. “Wanna smoke?”

Billy cocks a brow and looks at her for a sign of trickery. When he sees none, he’s quick to take and light it.

“Thanks for havin’ me, Mrs. Byers” he says, there’s no thankfulness in his voice and he makes sure to keep his eyes dead ahead.

“Oh, don’t thank me” she shelves his half-hearted gratitude with a flourish of her hand. “Nancy’s Steve’s ex girlfriend and I was starting to feel bad for the poor guy. Since you’re his friend…” she trailed off.

“I’m not” Billy scrunches his face up at the sole prospect of being friends with Harrington. “Harrington and I? Nah” he takes a lungful of his cig. Before Joyce has the chance to rebut that statement, he goes on. “It’s gettin’ late. Tell Max I’m waiting out here, will you?”

Joyce takes his plate, pats his arm with a smile, then disappears into her home.

...

Billy watches Steve usher the kids, excluding Lucas, out to the car. He tuts his tongue at the extrapolation that Lucas and Max are buying as much time as possible to chitchat.

“What are you doing here?”

Billy’s smouldering blues turn away from the Byers’ door to rest on Steve. “What am _I_ doing here?” He echoes, mocking, “I’m not the one driving strangers’ kids around town, Harrington.”

Steve glances away, running his fingers through his hair.

Billy smirks. “Is it Mrs. Wheeler?”

“Huh? What?” Steve looks back at him, confusion contouring his pretty features.

“No judgement from me” Billy lifts his hands. “But I gotta warn ya, she kinda has the hots for me and.. well,” he gestures for his general appearance. “You don’t stand a chance or anythin’.”

“Do you hear yourself right now?” Steve snaps. “Her kids are right there” he hisses, gesturing for his car. “Nancy’s nearly _your_ age. And she's my ex!”

Billy leans to the side to look at Nancy, head tilted with a squinted eye. He hums, contemplative. “Honestly? I don’t see the resemblance and I don’t see what you see in her.” He keeps it up. Wants to put the few bricks he let loose tonight back in their place.

“You’re an asshole” Steve takes a step back, then starts walking backwards to his car just as Lucas comes rushing out. “Have fun with your right hand, buddy.”

Billy trails his tongue over his upper teeth, laughing under his breath as he turns to get into his car.

“Harrington?” He calls out just as Steve gets his door open.

Steve looks up. “What?”

Billy crosses an arm over the top of the camaro, one foot already in. He lifts his hand, wiggling its ringed fingers. “Left-handed.”

Steve flips him off but can’t curb the minute smile curling his mouth upwards.

And Billy doesn’t miss it.


	3. Chapter 3

Billy wishes Max could just _try_ to be subtle about what she’s up to.

They’re sitting at the dining table on a Saturday afternoon, lunching quietly. It’s how it’s always been, there’s never much to say unless Billy or Max have been up to something mischievous at school or, in Billy’s case, at the station.

He’s never been one for troublemaking at school. Sure, he sometimes ditches classes, especially Geography, and he was caught a few times smoking in the bathroom or janitor’s room. But other than the occasional talking back to teachers, he never really cared enough to start trouble at school. Not because he can’t, but because he finds it callow. Likes to give off the _I don’t care enough about school to spice things up_ vibe.

Billy studies his father soundlessly, can blindfoldedly pin down the second Neil realizes something’s up. It’s an acquired talent of Billy’s. Neil stops moving, starts chewing slower, drums his blunt fingernails on the closest surface and keeps his eyes away when he drops a probing question.

“What’s his name?”

Billy takes a sip of his drink, looking at Max from over its rim. She looks.. dolled up. Has her hair plaited to one side and her nails polished a deep blue. And she’s _smiling._ It’s hard to live in this house _and_ smile unprovoked.

She looks at Susan, like she’d find her answer on the elegant features of her mother’s face. Susan smiles her reassurance.

“Uh, Lucas” she sits up straighter. “It’s not a date or anything, we’re just going to the mall with the rest of the gang.”

Neil nods, never looking away from the plate, where his greasy fingers are picking at a chicken leg. “Lucas” he says absently. “Last name?”

Max opens her mouth to respond but Billy beats her to it with an almost too rushed “Clarke!” that has everyone looking at him. “Lucas Clarke” Billy repeats, waving a casual hand. “Good kid.”

Susan smiles at Max, seemingly pleased with the small, oblique interaction.

“You driving her?” Neil asks, sucking at his thumb.

Billy nods. “Yeah.”

He looks at Max. Then hardens his gaze, _glares_, because how fucking dumb can she get?

...

“Clarke? _Clarke?_” Max is downright _horrified._“Seriously, Billy? That’s the best you could come up with?” She throws her skateboard into the backseat and turns to her brother. “I can’t believe you—”

“Shut your pie hole!” Billy shouts. Max comes to a hasty stop mid-sentence, crosses her arms over her chest angrily. “You listen to me” Billy grits.

He revs up the engine and takes off. He sticks a Marlboro stick between his lips and his words are muffled around it when he speaks. “I told you to stop seeing that kid.”

“You’re not my _owner_” Max says through clenched teeth. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. Since when do you even care? Last I checked, we’re not even siblings.”

Billy barks out a laugh that has the unlit cigarette falling out of his mouth. “You’re real funny, Maxine. I don’t give a shit whose dick you’re—”

“Oh my _god—_” Max flails her arms. “It’s not _like that_.”

Billy doesn’t say anything for a long time, then, with a deep breath he snarls, “That’s not the point,” a pause, “he hates black kids.”

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I see” Max quips.

Billy has a lot to say to that. Like _I didn’t shove the little shit up that wall because he’s black_ but that would be a half-truth because he _did_ attack him because he was black. He attacked him because he wanted to scare him away, to keep him away. For everyone’s sake.

His jaw draws taut. He looks out his window, grip on the wheel turning steely. “Just be careful” he finally says.

Max looks at him, confusion knitting her brows. “Yeah, ok, whatever.”

...

He misses dinner. Finds that he’s too high to care.

By the time he’s home, it’s half past ten and he’s bone-tired and _starving,_ and with little to no use, he tries to look a little sober, adjusting his jacket and buttoning up his shirt. He pops gum into his mouth and gets out of his car.

Neil greets him on the porch. He’s pacing back and forth, hands locked at the small of his back like he’s contemplating Billy’s punishment. Billy doesn’t care, just wants to get to his room and hit the sack.

Once Neil’s alert to Billy’s presence, he turns to look at him, anger clear in his cold eyes. “Your friend _Steve_ drove your sister home today” he says in lieu of a greeting.

Billy heaves a sigh, muttering a low _fuck_because he completely forgot. “Sorry, I forgot” he vocalizes. “It won’t happen again.”

“You missed dinner” Neil descends the porch steps. Billy wants to apologize again. “Again.”

Billy’s quick to look down, the sign of submission or respect or whatever carved in his brain.

“Don’t you think that with everything I’m doing for you… for _your_ future, I deserve a little damn respect?” Neil’s voice is barely a decibel louder than a gritted whisper as he steps into Billy’s space and has him taking a countering one back. Neil grabs him by the collar of his denim jacket, hisses a low “what did we say about _planting your feet?_”

Billy presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, curbing the tears burning hotly behind his eyelids. “Sorry” it’s pointless. “Look, I’ll apologize to Susan for missing dinner.”

Neil lets go of him, hard, making him stumble back a few steps. “No” he lifts his pointer finger, lips pursed. "No, you come back when you realize how _lucky_ you are.

“Who else puts a roof over your empty head and food on your damn table?”

Billy says nothing, jaw working relentlessly.

He hears his father’s muttered ‘your whore mother would’ve never put up with you’ as he walks away, and his hands clench into fists, nails digging crescents into his palms because that? that easily breaks his heart into more pieces than he suspects it’s made of.

...

He wakes up with the worst backache and a throbbing ache at the back of his head. The dull sunlight’s shining through the glass of his car-window. It makes him throw an arm over his face and groan a trail of profanities.

He forces himself to sit up and climb upfront when he hears the wailing of a police car, doesn’t want to put up with officers and stations.

There’s a knock on his window, so he rolls it down and rests his head back, for the facetious show but mostly to alleviate the pounding headache. “Anything wrong, chief?” He asks, then clears his throat when he hears how scrapy his voice sounds.

Hopper doesn’t answer. He steps back to open Billy’s door. “You’re coming with me, kid.”

And Billy doesn’t protest, just huffs tiredly and rolls his eyes as he climbs out.

He makes a move to get into the backseat of the Chevrolet but Hopper grasps the back of his shirt and pulls him back, opening the passenger door and not-so-kindly ushering him in.

“’M confused” Billy says as soon as Hopper starts the car. “Do you let all lawbreakers sit shotgun?”

“What law do you think you broke?” Hopper asks, elbow propped on the window sill as he bites his knuckle.

“I dunno. Trespassing?” Billy shrugs. He slides down his seat and lifts a foot to place it on the glove box. “Sleeping in my car? I dunno, Hops, it’s a hick town, Jesus knows what rules you fuckwits come up with.”

Hopper doesn’t react the way Billy expects him to. He spares him a quick glance. “You didn’t break any law, kid. You weren’t sleeping on private property.”

“So what am I doin’ here?” Billy asks slowly.

Hopper casts another look his way then looks back ahead. “You’re going to have breakfast with El and me, then we’re going to have a talk.”

Billy’s dignity wants to physically hold him back, but he’s too hungry to say anything, so he reclines the seat and crosses his ankles atop the dashboard.

“Get your feet off my dashboard, Hargrove.”

Billy doesn’t. Instead, he abuses the fact Jim’s driving and reaches over to take his sunglasses and slip them on.

...

Billy’s heard stuff about Jane, Eleven, El, whatever the fuck. He knows she’s pretty slow on the uptake, and from what Maxine and her taleteller friends said, she was subjected to some weird experiments. But Billy knows better than to listen to kid gossip.

Hopper makes breakfast. Eggs and bacon for Billy and an apple cinnamon Eggo for El. Then he leaves for a shower with a lame ‘I’m going to _hop_ into the shower’ that has El giggling at the pun.

Billy lifts his gaze to steal a glance at El, finds her unabashedly staring at him like he’s the eighth wonder of the world or some shit. “Can you stop staring?” The question cuts off abruptly and sounds incomplete, mostly because he _really_ wanted to add ‘freak’ to the end of it, but felt like he owed Hopper at least the kindness of being nice to his weirdo daughter.

She’s sitting still, palms facing each other astride her plate. It’s fucking weird.

“No” she says in a monotone.

Billy slows his chewing, tries to glare at her until she looks away but she seems immune to his terrorizing ways. So he sits back, sucks his teeth in finality, and crosses his arms over his chest to stare right back at her. It doesn’t make her half as uncomfortable as her penetrating brown eyes feel on him.

She drums her fingers on the table, drawing his gaze to her hand, where a blue string bracelet covers a simple 11 inked on her wrist. He nods his chin at it. “Aren’t ya too young to have a tattoo?” He asks. She cups her hand to her chest like she’d just been burnt before slowly letting go. She looks at him, then at her wrist. “Ta-too” she murmurs to herself slowly, tracing a thumb over it. “Papa” she summarizes.

“I thought Hop was all about the law” Billy lifts a scarred brow incredulously.

She shakes her head. “Not Jim. Papa.”

Billy’s lips part as he pieces everything together. There’s an ache in his chest at the insinuation it holds. “You had a piece of shit dad too, huh?”

El reaches for her fork and starts eating quietly.

“Well I’ll tell you what, I’ve gotta tattoo” Billy says. “It’s cooler than yours. Wanna see?”

El doesn’t answer with words, opting for looking at him expectantly. So he pulls down the shoulder of his half-buttoned shirt to show her his tattoo. It’s a skull smoking. He knows he’ll regret it at some point in life but right now, he thinks it’s pretty fucking cool.

She stares at it for a good thirty seconds, expression inscrutable. Then she lifts her eyes back to him.

Billy really wants to call her a weirdo. But there’s also a part of him that wants to get her to _talk,_ maybe smile or something. Anything other than the vacant expression she’s wearing. Like some sorta empty shell.

“Bitchin’” she eventually says. It’s the same tone, a little more forceful. But it’s _something._ And it’s something that has Billy slumping back in his seat, shaking his head at the absurdity of the situation.

Then he looks at her, smiling slightly at the upturn of her own lips. “Bitchin’.”

...

“My old man wasn’t the best.”

Billy looks at Hopper, whose back remains to him as he speaks and rinses the dishes. “_Not the best_ doesn’t even scratch the surface” Hopper laughs. The laugh lacks humour, sounds off and bitter. “He slapped me around, used tongue-in-cheek humour to make me feel like shit about everythin’ I did. You know the drill” he looks over his shoulder while saying the last sentence.

Billy plays it casual, shrugs a shoulder and frowns like he has no idea what Jim’s talking about. But he does. He feels the dull ache of familiarity against his ribs.

“It got real bad” Hopper slaps the water tap and turns around. “But I’m a cop now. I vowed to protect anyone in the confines of this _hick town_” he calls back Billy’s not-so-creative name for Hawkins. “And that includes you.”

Billy swipes his tongue over his lips. He feels defenseless, Hopper’s words feeling like lacerations to his charade. “Listen, chief, I dunno what you think you know—” he starts, but Jim cuts him short.

“I don’t _know_ anything” he says simply. “I _suspect._ But it’s up to you to confirm.”

Billy reaches for his denim jacket and slips it on with a deep breath. “It’s gettin’ late. I’ve places to be.”

Jim doesn’t seem disappointed, he doesn’t even comment on the fact it’s only a few minutes past noon. He steps closer and clamps a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Stay safe, kid.”

Billy puts on his signature smirk, gives him a two-finger salute and pops a cigarette between his lips.

...

Turns out, Billy’s _places to be_ is the liquor store whose owner shuts his mouth when it comes to lack of ID as long as he’s paid extra.

He turns up at some mediocre party a dud invited him to without being pulled over for a second time because of his reckless driving. He doesn’t remember who’s throwing the party, no one does. And as long as there’s free alcohol and a chance to get their leg over, they don’t give a shit either.

His eyes perch on Harrington the second he’s in the opulent house. It’s muscle memory, really; knowing where Harrington feels more comfortable standing at these parties. He didn’t realize it before, but now his brain is sizzling with the prospect of what it all means. It’s fine to know little things about the guy you can’t stand…so you can push his buttons under any situation… right?

He shakes the thought off, looks back at Harrington, who’s leaning back against a wall with a black blazer on and his sunglasses pulled up into his stupid hair like a makeshift hairband. He’s talking to the Wheeler chick, smiling like a lovesick bitch. Then Wheeler pats his arm in a friendly manner and walks away, Harrington’s gaze following her for just a second too long.

Billy approaches and holds up a plastic red cup some random chick gave him on his way in in favour of eating her boyfriend’s face.

Steve looks at it, then up at Billy. “That poisoned?”

“Ha-ha” Billy says, unamused, and jerks his head to the side, the same direction Nancy just walked in. “You gave the two-timer more than just a car ride last week, pretty boy?” He grins.

Steve huffs, tutting his tongue irritably, but takes the cup from Billy’s hand anyway. “You’re disgusting, man. And she didn’t two-time” he lifts the forefinger of the hand holding the drink in an attempted threat. A threat that’s as empty as his defence of Nancy. “Have fun with your left hand?”

Billy drops the subject, keeping his attention on the lighter one. “You seem rather caught up in my sex life, Harrington. Should I file a restraining order?”

“Nah, just rubbing it in how sad your sex life _is_” Steve’s eyes deliberately avoid him, instead surveying the room they’re in.

Billy feels the insult like a feelable blow to his pride even in his semi-drunkenness. “What are ya sayin’ Harrington? That I can’t have my pick of babes here?” He taunts.

Steve doesn’t dignify the question with an answer. His blood runs hot with a need to prove Steve wrong. He’s drunk at least half the bottle of booze in his car, so his tipsy state doesn’t hold him back from swaggering to a couple making out on the couch. He grabs the guy by the back of his shirt and pulls him away, drops him to the marble floor as if he were a sack of potatoes.

It makes the girl jump and squeak as she looks at her companion, shocked when he gets up and shouts something incoherent over the music before walking off angrily.

Billy’s index and middle fingers brush just under her chin, coaxing her into looking at him. She does, and she blushes. Because it’s _Billy._ And he’s looking at _her_ of all people.

Steve looks _horrified._

And the horror on his face entices a slow smirk from Billy, who keeps his eyes fixed on him even as he leans forward and takes the girl’s bottom lip between his own slowly. He sees the way Harrington’s expression shifts when she presses her lips to his hungrily. Like he’s some sort of spring amidst a desert.

He doesn’t actively kiss back though, just slacks his mouth against hers and keeps his gaze on Steve, lifts his hands to run them through her dark curls and swipes his tongue over hers.

Steve looks away, cup nearly scrunching in his grip. His throat bobs. He looks thrown off balance and it sends a rush of satisfaction through Billy as he draws his lips away from hers.

He offers her a saccharine smile and a quick peck on the mouth to smother the complaint spilling from her cherry red lips before rising to his feet and sauntering over to Harrington in that _slow, dangerous_ way he always does to assert control.

He takes the cup, downs what’s left in it and presses it back into Steve’s hand as he leans in real close, bracing a forearm on the wall just beside Steve’s head. “Y’know, Harrington?” He asks, letting his eyes roam their surroundings lazily before they’re scorching right into Steve’s.

Steve’s powerless to looking away. He can see his reflection in the California blues of Billy’s irises that have him pinned to the wall effortlessly.

Billy pulls back, knocks on the wall twice. He schools his features into their usual smugness, a thing that makes Steve wish he could go back five seconds and see what changed in his expression.

“Green really isn’t your colour.”

He leaves before Steve has the chance to say a word.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey yo 
> 
> so I was on neil's wikia last night and apparently there's an official backstory to why the hargroves moved to hawkins in the first place, something about max running off. that's canon, and im obv not following canon so I'll be ignoring that storyline in future chapters, just a heads up! :)
> 
> also, I'm fully aware billy is canonically younger than steve but i aged him up a year for plot reasons.
> 
> **____**

Apologizing proves simple. Billy tells Neil he was right, vows to never be late again, apologizes to Susan for missing out on her _delicious_ meal, then offers to do the grocery shopping before school.

She writes him a list that requires going to at least three different shops. He’s not complaining. If it were his choice, he’d never come home unless it’s to sleep.

“Can I help you?”

Billy draws his eyes away from the shelves to look at the clerk. “Hi, Mrs. Byers.”

“_Joyce_, Billy,” she chastises, faking motherly disappointment that has Billy laughing under his breath. “What can I do for you?”

“Uh, right,” Billy reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and opens the paper Susan had given him. “I dunno if you’ve got any of this stuff but-” he cuts himself off and hands the paper to Joyce.

She nods slowly. “I’ll be right back,” she says. “You can wait over there,” she waves a hand towards the register.

He walks over to it and pulls himself up to sit on the flat surface of the counter. It’s quiet in here. Empty for now. He surveys the shop, whistling distractedly.

Joyce reemerges from between the aisles with a bunch of stuff loaded in her arms. Billy’s quick to hop back down and help her out.

She starts scanning his purchases silently. It’s different. She’s always so talkative and Billy’s starting to feel a little uneasy, something that he surprisingly doesn’t find a problem vocalising. “Did Jonathan say somen’ about me?”

Joyce looks up. “Jonathan?” She asks, feigning oblivion, then she starts bagging his things. “Not much. He said you roughed someone up till he passed out,” she shrugs. Like it’s no big deal.

Billy has a sudden _itch_ to justify himself. He swallows thickly. “He say who?”

“Nah,” Joyce waves a hand. “You’re still a kid, got plenty of time to sort it out.”

Billy smiles a little at that, then clears his throat to hide it. “I’m not so sure about that, ma’am.”

“Well, I am” she hands him his bags, smiling sweetly. “Anger’s healthy if you find the right way to deal with it. You know Hopper? That guy seems like he’s got his shit together but between you and me,” she cups a hand over her mouth and whispers a ‘he’s got serious anger issues’. It has Billy throwing his head back with a laugh. Joyce joins in a second later and rounds the till. “But he was _way_ worse back in the day. His hair was about,” she taps her shoulder, “this long.”

_“No,”_ Billy exhales, incredulous.

“Oh, yes,” Joyce quips. “It was _the ugliest_ thing I’ve ever seen.”

Billy laughs again, sniffles and looks away as he shakes his head.

They fall silent for a few seconds. But then Billy feels her hand on his shoulder and he looks back at her. “I know how great it feels to give someone a good beating. My ex husband would love to tell you all about it,” she starts, words humorous but eyes gleaming with something else entirely, “but sometimes, _sometimes,_ it’s good to talk things out.”

If anyone else was saying this to him, Billy would laugh in their face, but there’s something about Joyce’s understanding approach that keeps him quiet.

She squeezes his shoulder, smiling warmly. “Take care of yourself, yeah?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Billy says lightheartedly.

He walks over to the door, then comes to a stop and turns around. Joyce’s back is to him, hand on her hip and head cast downwards. “Does it get lonely in here?” He asks out of nowhere.

She turns around, brows lifting in question.

“I mean, if you ever need anything…” Billy trails off, waving a hand in hopes of getting his point across.

She smiles. “Thank you.”

He nods his head, shifting his weight to the opposite leg before he points a thumb over his shoulder. “I uh- I’m late to school so—” he doesn’t finish that sentence off. Instead, he turns tail and rushes out.

...

He arrives to school halfway through second period. Physics. Something the teacher voices with a displeased glare his way.

Billy waves a hand, ambling over to take his seat beside the window. “Trust me, if it was up to me, I wouldn’t be here at all,” he says, facetious in a way that has his classmates hiding their laughter behind their fists.

He slumps in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest and mostly keeps his gaze out the window. He catches a few terms like ‘velocity’ and ‘Hooke’s law’ but otherwise filters out Mr. Hartley’s annoying hick accent. That’s until a scrunched-up slip of paper lands on his desk.

He doesn’t budge, regards it for a second before lifting his eyes to settle them on Harrington with clear disinterest. Steve pointedly lifts his brows at the note, prompting him to read it.

With a heavy sigh, Billy caves and reaches for it.

** _hey, I can drive Max home today if you have better places to be._ **

Harrington’s handwriting is… legible. Neat, with rounded double-ues and circles for tittles. Billy bites back the twitch at the corner of his lips. Then he pats around for a pen and scribbles back. He throws it, tongues the inside of his cheek when it hits Harrington’s head.

Steve straightens out the paper, mouths a ‘wow’ at the angular cursive Billy writes in. He doesn’t really know what he’d expected, maybe barely understandable squiggles, or nothing at all. Just a drawn middle finger. But fuck, wow, Billy’s handwriting is _elegant_.

** _you really trying to strike up a conversation in the middle of class, Harrington?_ **

Huffing a breath, Steve writes back, feels a little embarrassed of his bubbly letters.

** _you complaining? Hartley’s about as interesting as a pebble, man._ **

Billy makes sure the teacher’s facing the board as he unfolds the paper. Then he tips his head back with a soundless laugh. He shakes his head, wetting his lips as he reaches for his pen and writes back a,

** _’And I’m the only entertaining person around?_ **

** _ps. you ever wonder if mrs. hartley falls asleep while they’re goin at it?’_ **

Steve rolls his eyes, turns his head to regard him with a bland look and a treacherous smirk. **_don’t flatter yourself. you’re just the only person around who isn’t paying attention. plus, you can’t be aggressive on paper._**

** _ps. wouldn’t blame her._ **

Billy lets his tongue linger on his bottom lip as he reads it over. He ends up drawing the frontal view of a fist, writes a bold **_boom_** across the paper, then throws it back.

He watches Steve open the paper, grins at the way everyone turns to look at him when he snorts. Mr. Hartley looks up from his book and eyes Steve. “Anything funny, Mr. Harrington? What’s that you’ve got there?”

Steve clears his throat, adjusting his position. “Yeah, no, it’s nothing,” he shakes his head, curls his fingers around the paper before scrunching his nose with a sniffle.

Mark Lewinsky — that fucking nerdy piece of shit — leans over and snatches the paper ball from Steve’s loose grip.

“Hey- _Hey!_” Steve reaches for it but Lewinsky’s already sauntering over to the teacher like the good teacher’s pet he is.

Mr. Hartley smoothes the paper out and lets his magnified eyes skim the words through his glasses.

Steve looks utterly mortified. He’s trying to let out an excuse but keeps giving up halfway through the first syllable.

Billy on the other hand, reclines in his seat, swinging his pen between his fingers. “Havin’ trouble reading that, sir? Want help?” He asks.

Steve buries his face in his hands.

...

“C’mon, Harrington. What’s the worst that can happen?”

They’re sitting opposite each other in the principal’s office, awaiting their verdict.

“Um, I don’t know, suspension?” Steve answers sarcastically. His leg’s bouncing nervously, teeth gnawing at the side of his thumb.

Billy tuts his tongue. He opens his mouth to say something but the principal steps in. Steve stands up out of respect, aims a glare at Billy when the latter makes no move to follow suit. He steps on Billy’s foot and has him shouting out a “hey! Watch it, Harrington!”, sitting up and ducking to wipe Steve’s shoeprint off the leather of his boot with his sleeve.

Steve ignores him, turning to address the head teacher. “Sir, we were just—”

“I know what you were doing” the principal says. “William Hargrove and Steven Harrington,” he murmurs, mostly to himself, as he takes his seat and interlocks his fingers atop the desk.

“Billy.” “Steve.”

Then Steve snorts. “William,” he breathes under his breath, chuckling. Billy doesn’t respond with words, opting for a life-threatening glare Steve’s way that has him muttering an apology.

“Hargrove. Detention for you.”

Billy shrugs. Could be worse.

“And if you keep this behavior up, I’m afraid we’ll have to give your father a call.”

That sobers him up, has him adjusting his posture. “Yeah. Whatever.”

“As for you, Mr. Harrington, your parents have made many generous donations to our school in the past, so I’ll be letting you off with a warning—”

Billy snorts, because of-fucking-course rich Stevie won’t be given the same treatment. It’s not jealousy about the obvious bias. It’s just.. pity. Steve will get through high school with his family money as some sort of catalyst, but then what?

Steve glances at him, brief and clandestine. “Yeah, no. I uh- I started passing notes. And called Mr. Hartley boring.”

“Nothin’ wrong with stating facts, Stevie-boy,” Billy gratuitously inputs, clicking his tongue with a wink. And fucking _fingerguns._

Steve pointedly ignores him. “And uh- I’d like to be treated like everyone else so…” he waves a hand, “pass sentence.”

‘Aww,’ Billy coos, nudging his boot into Steve’s shin. “That’s real honorable, Harrington. Heart’s gettin’ all gooey.”

The principal looks at Billy then at Steve, a silent _you really wanna sit out the rest of the day with this nuisance?_ pendent between them. Steve shrugs.

“Very well then. Off you go.”

Steve ends up asking Jonathan to drive the kids home.

...

“_Truth or dare, Harrington?_ Are we twelve?” He lifts his feet onto the teacher’s desk, folding his arms over his chest.

Steve shrugs. “It’ll pass time.”

“You’re spending way too much time with the kids,” Billy murmurs, scrutinising his nails with no actual interest. “Truth or dare is just a trap to either admit you wanna shaft your crush or to stick your tongue down their throat.”

Steve lifts his head to glare at him, only to find Billy smirking. “So which one is it? You have a crush on me or you want my tongue down your throat?”

Steve rolls his eyes, having grown immune to Billy’s off-humour. “The only thing I wanna do with your tongue, Hargrove, is cut it off.”

Billy laughs throatily, tipping his head back. “Feisty.”

Steve huffs a breath, drumming his blunt fingernails against the desk. He’s bored out of his gourd.

“Spit it out,” Billy says on a sigh. He’s climbing onto the desk, an unlit cigarette wagging between his lips. “Got tape?” He asks, fiddling with the fire alarm.

“Why would I have tape?” Steve’s brows draw together.

“An elastic band? Cooperate with me, pretty boy.” Billy purses his lips at Steve’s confusion-lined face then snatches the cigarette out of his lips. “Ne’er mind. Shoot.”

“What?”

“You clearly have a question or you wouldn’t’ve desperately asked me to play truth or dare,” Billy states. He jumps down, landing on his feet gracefully.

“I just—” Steve shrugs. Billy found him out, and there’s no need to deny it, so he takes a breath and waves a hand in a clumsy arch. “Wanna know what happened that night.”

“What night?” Billy inquires half-mindedly, rounding the desk to plop down in Mr. Smith’s seat. He doesn’t sit still, doesn’t even part with a glance in Steve’s general direction, and starts fiddling with the drawer to get it open.

“You know what night,” Steve counters. “I managed a few blows even if you won in the end.”

Billy’s laugh is mocking, nasal and breathy. Twinges Steve’s pride a little. “Yeah. I dunno, man. I found you in an empty house with my sister and a bunch of other twelve year olds. Sorry I smashed a dish on your head instead of joining the orgy.”

Steve’s been working on curbing his anger, but Hargrove really is pretty damn adamant on testing his limits right now. “For the _last time,_ it wasn’t—” he cuts himself off when Billy starts juddering the drawer. “If that’s the reason, why’d you attack Lucas?”

“Lucas?” Billy muses, momentarily stilling. “Sinclair had it comin’. Told him to stay away.”

“He’s _twelve_.”

“Don’t care.”

“You terrorized the kid, man. I don’t know—”

“Look,” Billy lifts his head. He’s not trying to rip open the drawer anymore. “Every fuckin’ person in this pigsty knows I’m a piece of shit. Put that in your fuckin’ pipe and smoke it.”

Steve glances away, lifting a hand to comb his fingers through his hair. “Fine” he says. There’s no finality there. “OK. You planning on therapy?”

“For fuck’s sake—” Steve doesn’t know if that’s aimed at him or at the drawer that won’t open under Billy’s insistent hands. “Therapy?”

“Sociopathy,” Steve responds simply. “I mean, you’ve got the symptoms. No emotions, plus bouts of anger, ..” he waves a hand in Billy’s direction. “The recipe for you.”

Billy blinks, slow and vacant and in a way that makes Steve feel so much smaller. “You really are all sizzle, no steak, huh?”

And listen, Steve stopped giving a fuck what people thought about him the second he abdicated his _King Steve_ title, but there’s something about the tone Billy used that makes him feel a potent pang of _shame._ Billy, who always spices his tone with sarcasm and scorn, is looking at him like he’s just figuring him out. Like he’s finally piecing together the reason Nancy threw him away. And it jabs at Steve’s insecurities in a way nothing else ever has. He forces his eyes away, feels his nose sting with self-loathing.

Billy, seemingly caught in a reverie, finally sits back with a thud, tuts his tongue and hums. “My turn,” his ankles crossing on the desk again.

“No, that wasn’t the deal,” Steve opposes. He doesn’t care, really. He’s just trying to freshen the tension-thickened air with an argument or an insult or _something_ other than the ghost of Billy’s expression as he sized him up moments before.

“There wasn’t a deal. So here’s my question. Why do you hang out with the brats?” Billy asks the question like he’s been brooding over the subject for quite some time. He’s swinging a pencil between his fingers. When Steve looks at him, he aims a sharp smile back, presses his tongue against his canine before sucking at his teeth in that nasty way that would put Lothario to shame. It makes Steve focus on a spot on the wall behind him, cheeks flushing.

Ever since the night at the party, he’s been trying to avoid thinking of Billy in any other way than his status as Steve’s foe. He remembers the heat that overcame his body when Billy stood close enough for him to feel his breath against his face and the warmth of his body soaking through his shirt and deeper down into his _skin,_ to the very fucking core of him, kindling a thirst that wasn’t sated with a drink or two or freaking ten. He remembers climbing into his car and just… sitting there, wondering why the heck he was feeling what he was feeling. He’s having a hard time admitting to himself that he _felt something_, something so far from hate that he just locked the memory away in a corner of his mind and threw the key away. But with Billy looking at him right now, head tilted a little to the side, holding the pencil between both index fingers as he scrutinises him, the door that memory is locked behind is getting increasingly feeble.

“Pass,” Steve says. The word scarcely comes out. It leaves his lips in a shaky breath that prompts a small throaty hum from Billy.

“Why’d you and the Wheeler whore break up?” He asks.

“She’s not a _whore_,” Steve snaps.

“She isn’t? I could _swear_ someone told me you painted her name _alllll_ over town next to synonymous words with that cute handwriting of yours.”

Steve heaves a breath. “I didn’t _write_ anything.” Given Billy’s one-eyed squint, he doesn’t seem entirely convinced. Steve lets out a breath. “Listen, man, it was a long time ago. I apologized to her and we’re good.”

Billy brings the eraser of the pencil to his mouth, taps it on his lower lip as he studies Steve like he’s some sort of ornament.

Steve feels tiny under his scrutiny, but does a good job not showing it. Then Billy tuts. “You didn’t answer my question, Harrington” he sings, low and sweet and maybe a little threatening. Steve’s eyes are on the pencil, on the rhythm it’s tapping against Billy’s bottom row of teeth.

Billy notices, flicks his tongue over the unused pink eraser and laughs mockingly when Steve whips his head to the side, ripping his gaze away. “We just— drifted,” he eventually says.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“She just- fuck, dude, I don’t know, okay?” Steve argues. “I don’t know. I was a douchebag back then. I wasn’t all that good and she didn’t _see_ whatever good there _was_ so she- _We.._ broke up.”

The room is quiet suddenly, the silence ringing in Steve’s ears and echoing through his mind like a throbbing pain. He chances a look at Billy. Honestly, he doesn’t know what to expect from a person who seems incapable of emotion. But he doesn’t expect Billy to put the pencil down, or to pull his feet off the desk and sit up in a solemn manner.

Steve folds his arms over his chest. “What?” He grunts when Billy keeps regarding him with that serious look in his eyes.

“That’s not an excuse,” Billy states. “Thought love was _unconditional._” He may be saying it in a way to poke fun at the concept of love but it’s clear he’s not trying to prick Steve’s self-esteem or trivialise whatever he had with Wheeler. And that’s what makes Steve’s chest tighten, heart picking up speed. “Ain’t that right?”

Steve swallows.

“She seems bitchy and boring but you loved her anyway,” Billy continues. “She broke your stupid heart and you _still_ love her.” It’s not a question. “That’s not a fucking excuse. And with the number of trashy movies she watches, you’d think she’s learnt shit.”

Steve’s speechless. He’s trying to string words together, but he can’t find words. Doesn’t know how to respond. He just gapes at Billy, waiting for an answer to make itself heard.

This time, he can see Billy’s façade shape up on his features. Starting with his lips that pull over his teeth in a puckish smirk, then his eyes that blink one last time before they’re filled with smugness, and finally, his tongue as he says, “fuck, man, you’re pathetic.”

Steve doesn’t feel the insult. It flies right over his head because Billy… Billy just showed compassion.

The door flings open and a girl walks in, shouting out a “_morons!_” as she saunters over to the desk beside Steve’s. She swings her backpack off her shoulder and throws it to the floor as she all but throws herself down in her seat.

She huffs, arms folded over her chest in a bratty manner that has Billy beaming brightly.

“What the hell are you smiling at, creep?” She asks once she heeds him.

Steve snorts a surprised laugh, then lifts his hand to pinch his nose and clears his throat when two pairs of eyes turn to him. “Of-fucking-course I’m in detention with Steve _the hair_ Harrington.” The laugh she lets out sounds hysteric. Her arms flail in disbelief. Her knuckles crack against the side of the desk and she hisses, cupping her hand to her chest with an agonized swear word. “This day just keeps getting better and better.”

Steve wants to be offended by her nickname for him. He really does. But he can’t find it in him. Not when her complaints start increasing in petulance. And not when Billy laughs more openly with each one, head falling back and eyes clenched shut in a way that defines the crinkles at their corners.

Steve’s _fucked._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> try to work out an update schedule for this fic challenge [failed] 
> 
> side note: canon doesn't exist to me, specifically season 3, so there's going to be a lot of diverting here. 
> 
> enjoy! :D
> 
> _____

Steve’s failing.

He’s suspected it for quite some time, but only now, with his report card in his hand, is it becoming a palpable fact. He’s not dumb, plenty of his teachers have told him that much. In fact, his A- in trig and A in biology stood in as proof that he really wasn’t as dumb as Nancy sometimes insinuated. Not that he cares what Nancy thinks—not anymore. At least he’s trying not to. Besides, she never blatantly vocalized that she found him under-qualified. She just always had a subconscious body language that made it kind of obvious. Like the frown lines between her brows whenever she had difficulty understanding a genetics equation and he had _even more_ difficulty explaining it, or that one time she had a question about their chemistry lesson and when he’d told her that helium had the highest ionization enthalpy, she waved him off and asked someone else.

She never actually meant to wound his self-esteem, he knows that. But now, standing in the middle of his living room with his results in hand, he can’t help but think that maybe she was right.

He hangs his head, one hand running through his hair and the hand holding his cursed grades swinging to a stop at his side.

He hates admitting how much better his life would’ve been if his parents were around to stiffen his resolve. He hates the hopeless anger it kindles in his rib cage, a constant reminder that homesickness can be to a person. That _home_ can be a person. Can be two people. Who are off vacationing god knows where.

He allows himself just a minute of nostalgia, of missing them and itching to grab the phone and ring them up. Then he locks all of it up before he gets carried away. He straightens his back, hoping the strong posture will eventually mirror the misery inside.

Huffing a breath, he bites into his apple, holds it between his teeth until he pulls his jacket on, then heads to school.

...

Breakfast is quiet as usual. Billy’s eating quietly. Neil’s reading quietly. Max’s playing with her soggy cereal quietly. Even Susan, who’s standing at the stove, droning on and on and _on_ about some shitty educational club that’s striving to empower women, seems quiet. “We’ve run out of butter,” she mutters to herself mid-rant.

Max sits up suddenly and throws her head back to look at her mother upside down. “Can I hang out with some friends after school?”

Susan tsks. “This is the third time this week, Max,” Although she’s trying to scold her, there’s no real heat behind her words and it’s obvious that with a tiny bit of persuasion, Max will be skateboarding alongside her stupid friends today.

That’s probably why Neil is with her. She’s so pliant. Rarely ever stands up for herself. She’s not necessarily _weak,_ she’s just an appeaser. The absolute opposite of Billy’s mother. The idea that _that’s_ the reason Neil married her makes Billy breathe a short-lived laugh out his nose.

“But _mooom!_” Max complains in that petulant way of hers.

Neil doesn’t lower his newspaper as he murmurs a low, _“No means no, Maxine. Listen to your mother.”_

Max opens her mouth to protest but Billy kicks her hard enough to turn the complaint to a loud, “_What_ is your problem?” aimed his way.

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t so much as glance at her.

“Billy will do the grocery shopping this evening while we’re out, won’t you, Billy?” Neil addresses their lack of butter expectantly, gazing at his son from over the newspaper.

Billy stands up and slides his plate into the sink. “Yeah, whatever. ’M waiting in the car,” he says on his way out of the kitchen.

...

“Hey, Hargrove!”

Billy doesn’t glance back, but he breaks his stride and waits till Steve falls into step beside him. “I was calling you.”

“I had no idea,” Billy responds, not even putting effort into sounding believable. “What do you want, Harrington?”

Steve sighs. “Maybe we should apologize to Mr. Hartley for… you know,” he waves a hand in reference to their note-passing.

Billy snorts. “Nah, man. Listen,” he sidles a little closer to Steve and wraps an arm around his neck in supposed friendliness. Steve can feel his damp breath against the shell of his ear as he says, “_I_ had to sit out detention hours listenin’ to you and that—” Billy flourishes his ringed hand, the cold metal briefly brushing Steve’s cheek, “—_girl,_ bitch about your chickenshit problems. So _I_think that you two should be apologizing to _me,_ and so should that bald fuck, Hartley, for putting me through that,” he doesn’t give Steve the chance to respond, benignly slapping his cheek twice in a row before stepping back and walking ahead.

Steve rolls his eyes. “Come on, man! You were enjoying your time!” He yells out, incredulous.

Billy ignores him.

...

Mrs. Byers — _Joyce_ — is pacing back and forth when Billy reaches the shop. He lags for a second, not sure he should interrupt her time of distress, but then steps inside, making the bell above the door jingle. She stops pacing and turns to look at him. “Hey, you!” She greets joyfully.

Billy smiles. “Hi,” he replies. “Um, am I interrupting?”

“No, no, I’m just—” she runs her fingers through her hair, tousling it further. “I haven’t been on a date in— _since_ I lost—” she swallows, looking away.

Billy struggles to find anything to say. Instead, he walks over and drags a chair from behind the register. He places it near her and gestures for her to sit down. She drops down, burying her face in her hands. “I’m a mess.”

Billy shakes his head. “Nah, you’re not. You’re just nervous,” he corrects airily. “Is there anythin’ I can help with?”

“You can bury me in the ground and tell Jim I’m a figment of his imagination?” Joyce offers.

Billy lets out a throaty laugh, shaking his head at her flair for the dramatics. “You’re goin’ on a date with Chief Hopper?” He asks once everything she said sinks in, “come on, ma’am, you can do better.”

She lifts her head to give him a _‘take this seriously’_ look. It makes him lift his hands in surrender. “Just sayin’.”

“I like him. I really _like_ him. But I don’t _know_ if I’m.. ready,” she smacks her thighs and stands up.

Billy shifts his weight from one leg to the other. “You’ll have to find out.”

“Do I _look like_ someone who’s going on a date?” It takes Billy a few seconds to realise she was being serious. And a little more than a few seconds to see the subtle changes in her appearance.

He tuts his tongue. “You got a hair tie or somethin’?”

She pats herself down for a considerably long time, then turns her pockets inside out to show him she found nothing.

In return, Billy huffs a breath and shoves the grocery list Susan had put together into his jeans before fishing an elastic band and four hairpins whose paint seemed a little worn out out of his back pocket.

Joyce smiles a little, brow raised.

“Long hair problems,” Billy elucidates tersely, tucking the pins between his lips. He steps in closer to lift her hair into a ponytail and leaves a few stray strands near her ears.

When he moves back to admire his handiwork with a contemplative scowl, she lifts a hand to brush hesitant fingers over her hair. Dolling up seems to be unfamiliar territory for her. “Yeah, I guess that’ll do,” he shrugs. “Uh, do you have..this stuff?” He hands her another list from Susan.

While she’s off gathering them up, the door rings open and Billy spins on the heels of his boots. He stares for a second, then dissolves into bouts of laughter. “C’mon, man, tell me you’re kidding,” he waves a hand in Hopper’s general direction. “That’s the ugliest shit. A fuckin deal-breaker if you ask me.”

Hopper looks down at his Hawaiian shirt and straightens it out. “I’m not the one with that hair, kid,” despite his retaliation, he sounds nervous. It makes Billy snicker with a shrugged _whatever_.

“Here you go,” Joyce says, a little breathless as she stumbles out. Hopper rushes over and helps her get Billy’s things on the register.

He falters, staring at Joyce like she’d hung the moon and stars. “Uh, hey,” he says gruffly. “You look…”

“Ugh, just give me my stuff,” Billy walks over and helps bag the groceries. Hopper remains lost in reverie throughout the process. Joyce’s flushed pink, hands shaking a little. “You’re both gross,” Billy states on his way out.

“Don’t go speeding, Hargrove!” Hopper shouts out. “I _mean it._ I want to _enjoy_ this evening.”

...

He’s in an oddly good mood when he gets home. He shuts the door with his elbow and rips a rope of Twizzler in half with his teeth. “I’m home!” He shouts out.

The house is eerily quiet. He puts the bags in the kitchen and walks up to Max’s room to throw a packet of Skittles at her stupid empty head.

He’s not exactly surprised when he finds her room empty. But his mood deteriorates in less than a second. He climbs down the stairs in a rush and grabs his keys off the table.

Ripping the door open, he finds Neil and Susan just behind it. Both their grins gradually fade as they turn to look at him. “Anything wrong?” Susan asks, sugary sweet.

Billy swallows. “Maxine ran off to hang out with her friends,” he knows making it sound like it’s no big deal won’t lessen how big of a deal it really is, but he says it casually anyway.

Neil hangs his head, inhaling deeply through his nose. “Two hours, Billy,” he starts. “We left you for _two hours,_ and you still managed to fuck up.”

Billy’s anger turns his blood hot. He tightens his grip on the door and opens it further to let them in. “I was doin’ the grocery shopping as you ordered,” he states. “It’s physically impossible to be in two places at once.”

“I’m sure she’s alright,” Susan interrupts softly, “I’ll call the Wheelers and Sinclairs. They usually hang out there.”

Billy’s lips press together, eyes falling shut at her mishap.

“Sinclairs?” Neil echoes, eyes sliding to his son.

Susan visibly shrivels, realising where she messed up. Billy wishes she’d just shut the fuck up and stay out of things because _every damn time_ she tries to make things better, she somehow makes them worse.

Neil kicks the door shut and takes his jacket off. “Susan, give us a minute.”

Susan opens her mouth, like she wants to defend Billy. She doesn’t. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and walks away.

“You know what people are saying about us, Billy?” Neil asks once she’s out of sight.

“No. And I don’t _care_,” Billy snaps. “Who fucking cares what people in _Hawkins_ think?”

“We’re _not_ in California anymore!” Neil shouts.

Billy fights the itch to shrink back at the aggressive timbre. “Yeah, well whose fault is that?” His own tone weakens. He swallows and glances away. “If she hadn’t _snitched_—”

“If she hadn’t snitched, _what?_ You’d be with your whore mother?” Neil asks. He laughs, mocking Billy for contemplating the prospect of _seeing_ his mother again. “You think she’d _want_ you? You’re letting us all down, Billy. You can’t even control your own damn sister. She’s off with some _black kid—_”

“She’s _not_ my sister!”

Neil’s done talking. He reaches for his belt and pulls it out of the loops. “Put your hands on the wall, Billy.”

...

Steve likes to think he’s observant. He saw the way Jonathan looked at Nancy way before they got together. He saw the way Carol looked at Tommy and he saw the way Tommy looked at Billy and he remembers the way Tommy looked at _him._ He suspected there was something fucked up going on in Hawkins before he was faced with that _thing_ from the upside down back at the Byers’ house, even if he evaded thinking about it and didn't imagine it'd be something as supernatural as _the Upside Down._ He suspected there was something more than a simple amity going on between Joyce and Chief Hopper, that one is yet to be confirmed.

But one thing that does _not_ require his observation skills is Billy Hargrove and his everlasting narcissism. Mrs. Wheeler asks him to unscrew a bulb? He takes his shirt off. Fist fight? Shirt off. Party? Shirt off. Too hot? Shirt off. Mrs. Henderson asks him to get Tews off the roof? Shirt off.

And well, Steve doesn’t usually care. It’s common knowledge that shirtless Billy was Billy in his natural habitat.

So when he walks onto the basketball court with a white undershirt on, it’s only natural for Steve to be surprised. Even the few girls sitting on the bleachers get up and walk away with peevish complaints about ditching their classes for no reason.

Billy’s more aggressive today. And that’s saying a lot. He ends up battering a junior for making a subtle comment about his appearance. Coach grabs him by the back of his undershirt, and pushes him in the direction of the showers.

Steve finds him hunched over, forehead rested on the wall’s cold tiles. The first thing he notices when he joins him under the shower head, is that the water is _too cold._ Something he quickly forgets about when he notices the bandages all over his back, visible through the wet undershirt. “What the hell happened, man?” He asks.

“None of your business, Harrington,” Billy’s trying to sound menacing, and failing. It doesn't work. Not when his voice cracks at Steve’s last name.

“It is if it’s affecting practice,” Steve states stubbornly. He’s lying, he doesn’t care about practice. And that’s something he wishes he never admitted to himself. That he _cared._ “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you could always—” Billy has him up against the wall before he can finish that sentence, forearm pressed against his throat.

Steve remains pliant under his grip. He knows if he puts up a fight they’ll both end up in shambles.

A flash of some unrecognizable emotion crosses Billy’s features, something ineffable and _vulnerable._ Steve swallows, lets out a slow breath as he slowly lifts a hand.

It’s gentle when it grazes Billy’s forearm. And the second they come into contact, Billy lets go, like a puppet cut loose.

He storms off before Steve can scrape together his ability to breathe.

...

“What’s going on with you, Steve?”

Dustin asks the question offhandedly, keeps his eyes on some physics book Mr. Scott Clarke had given him as he slurps from the straw of the Coca Cola he’d forced Steve to buy him.

“Huh?” Steve divides a brief look between Dustin and the book before settling his eyes back on the road. “What? Nothing.”

“You’re not talking,” Dustin states casually, like he knows all Steve’s mannerisms by heart. “You’re not singing along to Pink Floyd,” he points the straw of his drink at the radio. “Or tapping the tune on the wheel. So what’s going on with you, Steve?”

Steve smiles a little at Dustin’s analysis. But then he shrugs in a way that says _‘I don’t know where to start’_ more than _‘I don’t know’_, period.

Dustin slams the book shut and turns to face him. “Start talking,” he orders sternly.

Steve huffs a gasty breath. He lifts his hand to run his fingers through his hair in frustration. “You wouldn’t understand, dude.”

Dustin, clearly not buying it, blinks unimpressed. “If it’s about a _girl,_ I’ll have you know girls love me.”

Steve doubts that.

“Oh?” He asks, humouring him to shift the attention away from his own dilemma.

Dustin does that stupid purr and Steve pointedly tells him not to and that it makes him uncomfortable.

“So it _is_ about a girl?”

There’s no getting out of this. Steve’s known Henderson long enough to know he never lets go of a subject until he has his way. Huffing another breath, Steve glances at the backseat through the rearview despite knowing he’s dropped everyone off already. But fuck knows what El slash Jane can do with her powers. “Not exactly,” he eventually says. “It’s- It’s just complicated, _okay?_”

“More complicated than having a girl with psychokinetic powers open a gate between our world and an alternate dimension full of veracious dogs whose faces open up and swallow the cats of lonely single mothers—”

“Hey, _hey, chill_,” Steve interrupts, lifting a hand to cut him off before he got too indulged. Then he feels stupid for even contemplating which situation _is_ more complicated. He swipes his tongue over his lips, a nervous tic of his that usually means he’s getting ready to say something he _really_ does _not_ want to say. “Do you eat pages of the dictionary for breakfast?” He asks through a nervous laugh. He’s taking a subroute in yet another endeavour to deflect from the main subject of discussion.

“_Stop changing the subject,_” by the sound of his drawled words, it’s obvious Dustin’s patience is wearing thin.

“Fine,” Steve snaps.

Dustin listens patiently.

“I— uh— so, you know how I dated Nancy? Mike’s sister?” He lifts a hand off the steering wheel to wave it expressively. “And how she’s…” he trails off, hand still waving like they’re playing some complete the sentence game.

“Pretty?” Dustin offers irrelevantly.

“No—” Steve cuts himself short. “I mean _yes,_ yes, she’s _pretty._ But that’s not what I—” he groans and spares Dustin a quick look, enough to see the blank blink he’s giving him. “Don’t give me that. I’m trying here!”

“Just say whatever you wanna say!” Dustin fires back. His outburst makes Steve fall silent.

He’s drumming his fingers against the leather of his steering wheel contemplatively, jaw working. He appreciates that Dustin isn’t pushing _too much_. So he takes a deep breath and says, “I think I’m attracted to a guy.” It’s not the best way to approach the subject but it’s straight to the point and Dustin likes straight to the point so _there._

Dustin’s slurping stops. Steve can feel his gaze burning into the side of his head. He’s known Dustin for like half a year. He knows he’s a good kid who probably wouldn’t judge him for something like _that,_ but he can still feel the weight of his words heavy in his gut. There’s a metallic tang on his tongue. He swallows, waves a hand in what he hopes is nonchalance. He says, “Say something, dipshit,” while looking at anything _but_ the stunned-into-silence kid sitting in the passenger seat.

Dustin exhausts his train of thought and sits back. “My uncle’s gay. Wait no. My mom’s step brother’s cousin’s half—” he’s waving a finger in the air to make the connection, tuts his tongue and starts over in a murmur. It doesn’t take more than two brain cells to figure out that Dustin doesn’t know what to say. He’s trying to ease the tension, which isn’t exactly working but Steve’s grateful all the same.

“_O-kay_” Steve enunciates, then laughs a little. “So, we’re cool?”

Dustin stops murmuring to himself and slumps. “We’re cool, Steve,” he heaves, relieved.

“And uh- can we keep it between us because I’m not ready to…”

“Yeah. It’ll be our dirty little secret,” Dustin grins cheekily.

“Don’t say it like that.”

...

“What the _fuck_ happened to you?”

Billy pointedly ignores Max’s question, opting for a drawled, “What did I say about knockin’, Maxine?” that he hopes sounds as careless as possible.

Max steps inside and shuts the door behind her. “Dude,” she waves a hand at his back, “seriously!”

He rolls his eyes. “I fell, okay?”

“On a barbecue grill?” She asks, clearly not buying into his lie.

He reaches for a roll of bandages. “What do you want?” He pulls his cigarette out of his mouth and puts it out on his bedside table.

“Nothing- I just—” she shrugs. “Wanted to thank you for the Skittles.”

“Whatever,” Billy mutters.

“Um. You need to sanitize that, y’know,” Max gestures for the marks marring his back. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

She’s back in less than a minute, a bottle of alcohol in hand. She grabs his wrist and guides him to his bed.

“This is gonna hurt.”

It does. But he holds back from hissing, hoping that’ll make up for how weak and exposed he feels.

“You’d make a good nurse or some shit,” he states when the silence becomes unbearable.

He sees her shrug through the mirror. “You’d make a good patient or some shit,” she smiles. Billy ducks his head, fondness tucked into the corner of his own smile.

“Alright, dipshit. Get out of my room,” he stands up once she’s done. He walks over to the door and swings it open.

She rolls her eyes. “You’re impossible.”

...

“The guys are going to the movies tonight,” Max says. She keeps her eyes on her food, chewing slowly as she talks. “Can I go?”

“No,” Neil responds idly. “How many boys are you friends with, Maxine?”

Max looks at him. “It’s Max,” she corrects.

Neil puts his fork down and slumps back in his seat while crossing his arms over his chest. “How many _boys_ are you friends with, _Max?_”

Billy, despite his display of not even listening as he scoops lumpy rice onto his plate, is very much listening, waiting for her answer with bated breath.

Max doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, then, spoken like the fierce little bitch she is, she says, “Five, if we’re counting Steve.”

Billy, dismayed by how dumb she can be, finds himself smiling anyway, lopsided, as he shakes his head.

Neil nods, tonguing his gums to get the excess food from there. It’s disgusting. “Five” he repeats under his breath. “And how many of those are you jumping into bed with?” His voice is calm, sweet, so fucking terrifying that Billy’s hand shakes as he puts the lid carefully back ontop of the pot.

Max stands her ground. “None. And for your information, it’s none of your business who I want to hang out with,” she turns to direct her next words at Susan. “Can I go?”

Neil bangs a fist on the table. “This is _my_ house and _my_ rules, you _will—_”

“I’ll take her,” Billy says in a single breath. “I’ll watch the stupid movie with her and make sure no one gets a hand on her.” He sits down next to Max, smiling amiably to diffuse the tension.

Neil glares hotly. Susan places a hand on his shoulder. “They’re getting along,” she says. That seems to assuage a great deal of his anger. His lips twitch like he wants to argue, but when Susan squeezes gently on his shoulder, his mouth goes slack. He lifts a threatening finger as he looks between the two, Max shielded by Billy’s presence. “If you’re not back by nine,” he starts, directing most of his words at Maxine. “You can stay on the streets like the—”

_“Dad,”_ Billy interrupts. “We’ll be back before nine.”

...

Max’s hands are wedged between her jeaned thighs, eyes cast downward. She’s abnormally quiet, lips pressed into a straight line. Her shoulders hunched and her leg bouncing with something Billy dares liken to nervousness.

“Thank you,” she whispers. Her voice is rasped with disuse. “For what you did,” she elaborates.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Billy deflects instantly. He knows there’s no one else he can pin it on. He doesn’t like _Susan_. She knows that. And he knows that she knows that. It’s obvious he _did_ do it for her. Especially after their playful conversation earlier that week. “Jesus _Christ_, Max. What did I say about mouthing off to him? Can’t you be a _little_ discreet about the fucking freak show you’re hanging out with?” He’s just unwinding. He doesn’t want an actual answer and Max knows it.

“Red Dawn,” she says in lieu of a response. At his questioning look, she goes on. “The movie we’re watching.”

“Oh,” Billy exhales. He shrugs like he doesn’t care. “Patrick Swayze’s hot. Could be worse.”

Max falters at that. Her lips part. She drags in a breath. Billy notices the sudden tension.

“Spit it out, Maxine,” he sings her name. She finds that it isn’t half as irritating as it sounds coming from her step-dad.

“Patrick Swayze is a guy,” Max lets out.

She expects Billy to panic, or to at least let his guard slip for a second. But he doesn’t. Instead, his lips lift into a smirk as he pulls to a stop. He pulls the key out of the ignition, looks at himself in the rearview, then turns his amused eyes on her. “How observant of you,” he muses drolly, clapping his hands twice — nice and slow to emphasise how unimpressed with her observation he is — before stepping out of his car.

...

“Oh would you look at that,” Billy smirks, leaning forward and bracing his forearms on the counter with his fingers intertwined. “If it isn’t the bitching shrew from detention?” He puts on a charming smile as if he hadn’t just addressed the girl in the most insulting of ways.

If she were any other girl, she’d either completely disregard what was said before he aimed that darling smile their way, or spit in his face for being a sexist piece of shit. But this isn’t any other girl. This is the girl who spent four hours after school complaining to her heart’s content and shooting backhanded compliments at Harrington until Billy’s sides hurt. She was, and Billy wishes that isn’t the way he felt about her, pretty fucking cool.

“I didn’t catch your name last week,” he says in that low, raspy voice girls usually dig.

She hands Max and Lucas their Coca Colas and turns to look at him with the fakest smile she can muster. “That’s because I never said it,” she quips. Before he can say anything else, she taps a finger on her name badge. “Blind as well as dumb, Hargrove?”

“So you _do_ know who I am.” Billy steps back from the counter and spreads his arms with a wide grin. “And here I thought you were playin’ hard to get.”

“People know who Ivan the Terrible is,” Robin points out, “doesn’t necessarily mean he was cool.”

Billy _really_ likes her.

“You think you’re being slick, huh?”

She disregards his question and leans forward, nearly nose-to-nose with him. “I really like Red Dawn,” she says, irrelevant. “So I’m going to strike a deal with you.”

Billy blinks.

“I tell you three things about yourself, and you take my shift,” she pokes his chest with a cherry smirk.

Billy licks his lips, looking away with a huffed laugh. “Deal.”

“OK,” she leans back, already taking her apron off. “You’re blond.”

“Fuck you, Buckley,” he curses without rancor. “That’s obvious.”

“We didn’t set rules,” Robin jumps over the counter. “You’re left-handed.”

Billy gives her credit for that one. It’s rare that someone notices.

She hands him the apron and clips her name on his breast pocket as she leans forward. “And you have the hots for _Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington.”_ she emphasizes on _the hair_ with air quotes, and Billy’s mouth goes slack. He feels like his ribs are closing in on his heart. “I don’t—”

“Come on, man, it’s obvious,” Robin laughs. “I won’t tell anyone. Trust me.”

She slides off the counter and boops his nose with a finger. Then she taps the name badge she’d clipped neatly on him. “The movie’s starting. Have fun, _Robin_.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter summarised:
> 
> steve:  
billy: (*˘︶˘*)  
anyone who isn't steve:  
billy: (ง'̀-'́)ง

The weekend drags on too slowly for Billy’s liking. He visits the cinema thrice, and all three times, Robin’s shift is either finished or doesn’t begin for another fuck knows how many hours.

There’s a tendril of fear in his gut that draws taut every time he thinks back to Buckley’s words. No one ever pointed out the more controversial things about him, and _usually,_when they did, it was to _threaten_ him. To lord it over him, to _cut him down to size._

_Usually,_ when they did, he’d beat them to a pulp and tell them to keep their filthy mouths shut.

But hitting a _girl_ was low even for a guy like Billy Hargrove. He doesn’t even _know_ what he’s going to say or do once he catches her mid-shift.

He pulls over on the side of the road outside the Wheelers’, honks the horn a few times and waits a minute or two. He looks at his watch, leg bouncing, then, fed up with waiting, he climbs out of the car and swaggers over to the front door.

Before knocking, he adjusts his denim jacket to look presentable enough. He knows Mrs. Wheeler would choose him in a freakin’ garbage bag over her stick-in-the-mud of a husband whose name Billy never bothered to find out, but there’s nothing wrong with looking extra good for a desperate woman.

He lifts a hand to knock, then goes for the politer method and rings the bell, stepping back with a charming smile.

He hears the click of Mrs. Wheeler’s heels, drawing closer before the door swings open. “Billy!” She enthuses, feigning surprise.

“Mrs. Wheeler,” he greets, stepping closer and looking over her shoulder into the house. “I’m here to pick up Maxine,” he looks back at her. He notes the way she swallows, forcing her eyes away from his uncovered chest.

“O-Of course. Right. Come on in,” she pulls the door further open and lets him inside. “You can wait in the living room, I’ll go get her.”

Billy wanders into the living room and wants to retreat the second his eyes land on the Wheeler chick and her weird ass boyfriend but decides against it when the weirdo looks up at him. Wheeler still hasn’t opened her eyes to his presence, braiding a kid’s hair.

Billy briefly wonders if he isn’t Mrs. Wheeler’s first (attempted) affair. Because that kid’s too blonde compared with the Wheeler Nerd’s black hair and the Wheeler Whore’s shades of brown. “’S that what boring people do in their spare time?” He asks casually, leaning against the doorjamb with a pallid smile, arms crossed over his chest. “Play family?”

Nancy looks at him. “Better than whatever you do in your free time,” she pauses as she finishes up the girl’s hair and pats her on the shoulder. “What _is it_ you do? Flirt with women twice your age like some sick pervert?” She asks, sugary sweet, then, in a tone just as sweet but not as fake, she says, “Done, Holly. Go and play.”

Holly gets up and walks past Jonathan, stops to give Billy a quick look that he effectively deflects with a glare that has her running. Billy can vaguely hear her footsteps as she trots up the stairs.

His eyes slither back to Nancy, who’s still waiting for an answer.

He wonders what Steve ever saw in her. She was _plain_. Visibly, she was pretty, Billy will give her that. Big blue eyes, a pointy bone structure that somehow makes her look both dangerous and innocent at the same time. She has a sweet smile, one that makes her eyes soften and the person on the receiving end melt or something. But inside, she’s as dull as dishwater. And… well, Billy sometimes thinks about detention, about the sadness dampening Harrington’s smile when he spoke about her, and he hates that it makes his own loathing of her way more intense. Which was, well, fucking illogical because he shouldn’t care who hurts Steve’s feelings.

He drains his train of thought and laughs quietly, head tipping back a little. “Pervert?” He echoes. His eyes momentarily flicker to Jonathan. “Nah, I think that’s Johnny-Boy’s area.”

Nancy’s face falls. Jonathan’s shoulders hunch.

“I mean, from what I heard, _he,_” Billy points his car key at Jonathan to emphasize his point. “Was the one creeping around with a camera in hand,” he pauses with a smirk, runs his tongue over his front teeth. “Not like there’s much to develop,” he nods his chin at her chest.

Nancy’s quick to wrap her arms around herself, rubbing a thumb over the opposite shoulder as she glances at her boyfriend. She looks mildly hurt. It makes satisfaction spark in Billy’s chest.

“Stay away from my mom,” Nancy says weakly.

“Oh, I’ve got no problem with that,” Billy unfolds his arms and pushes himself off the doorjamb. He glances over his shoulder to make sure Karen isn’t around before he turns back, ambling further into the room and surveying the interior with an impressed whistle. He takes his time, can almost feel Jonathan and Nancy’s anticipation for the rest of his sentence. The _punchline_. “Your mom probably does, though. Woman would be _honored_ to bruise her pretty knees for me.”

Nancy launches, taking him by surprise when she pins him against the wall. Billy lifts his hands in defense. He’s fast to regain composure and laugh in that ridiculing, throaty way of his. He can easily break free from her hold but allows her the satisfaction of feeling _a little bit_ in control.

“Feisty,” he murmurs. He looks over her shoulder at Jonathan, standing just behind her and ready to jump to her defense if needed. “Who fucks who here, Johnny?”

Nancy hardens the press of her bony arm against his throat. “Stay away from my mom,” she repeats through clenched teeth.

Billy rolls his eyes and grasps her wrist, pushing it away nice and slow in such a demeaning way that she willingly moves back. “Loosen up, Wheeler, you’re gonna pop a vessel,” he brushes past her and throws himself on the couch, resting the ankle of one foot on the opposite knee. “Your mom’s safe from the big bad wolf. _Where is she,_ by the way?” He cranes his neck to look into the next room.

He sees Holly running down the stairs. He sees her tripping over, hears her grumble to herself as she stands back up.

Then, to his utter mortification, he sees her running his way with a thumbnail sized plastic cup in hand. She stops just in front of him, holding it out. “Tea?”

Billy tries driving her away with a glare, but she stands her ground. Jonathan crosses his arms, pressing one hand to his chin to hold back a surfacing bout of laughter. Nancy looks scared Billy will slap her little sister.

“I don’t like tea,” Billy says after clearing his throat. He adjusts his position and aims a glare at Jonathan when the latter snorts into the palm of his hand.

“It’s coffee,” Holly lies.

“Well it’s a _fucking_ pity I don’t like coffee either,” Billy hurls. He hopes it’s enough for her to go crying into her mother’s hip.

Holly turns around for a second then turns back to him, little yellow plastic cup still pinched between her fingers. “It’s wine.”

Billy heaves a sigh, jaw working. Nancy mutters something into Jonathan’s ear before leaving the room.

Holly places the cup on the armrest just beside Billy’s elbow before following after her sister.

“Fuckin’ finally, how many times do I have to tell you to stop bein’ late?” Billy snaps, standing up and pushing past Maxine with a huff.

He doesn’t stop walking until he’s at his car door.

**...**

“You’re in a really good mood today,” Joyce says as she bags Steve’s stuff.

Steve’s _physically_ unable to hold back his toothy grin. It makes him look younger, makes Joyce smile back until her eyes are crescents. “Yeah, parents are popping over for a visit,” he says gleefully, “thinking I’d cook something special tonight.”

Joyce coos, handing him the bags. “Naww. You’re such a doll. Give them my best, will you?” she says.

“Will do,” Steve answers. “Tell Jonathan I said hi and uh- have a good day.” He’s so consumed by his happiness that he doesn’t notice Billy walking in until their shoulders are brushing. “Hey, Hargrove,” he says casually.

Billy’s brows furrow and he looks over at Joyce, who lifts her shoulders with a grin. “His parents are dropping by,” she answers his silent question with Steve’s enthusiasm.

“Aha,” Billy nods, disinterested. When he sees Steve struggling to open the door with his chin, he walks over and opens it for him, something that gains him a wide smile. Billy has to bite the insides of his cheeks to hold himself from replying in kind. He also allows himself a second to imagine what it’d be like to brush away the stray strand of hair hanging loosely over the bridge of Steve’s nose and tuck it behind his ear. Steve huffs, blowing the hair away from his face like he’s reading Billy’s mind. The thought alone has Billy snarling, “Tell your folks I said wear a condom next time.”

Steve rolls his eyes and steps out.

When Billy turns to Joyce, he finds her smiling at him knowingly, hand on her hip and brow arched.

Billy grumbles. “Don’t give me that. I’m not the one hooking up with Chief Hopper.”

Joyce chuckles. “Not my business.”

“Listen, we’re just friends.” They’re not even that, but Billy doesn’t need someone else finding him out. “And I’m still figuring out how this _friendship_ thing works.”

Joyce smiles and nods. “I know.”

“How did your date with fat-man Hop go?” Billy asks.

He doesn’t have a list, doesn’t really want to buy anything but doesn’t want to be at home either. He’d slipped out when he sensed an upcoming anger fit from his dad about the electricity bill. He didn’t want to be in the firing line.

Joyce shrugs, rubbing a hand over the nape of her neck. “It was nice,” she summarizes. “It was… it was really nice.”

Billy nods slowly. She deserves happiness, even if it’s with _Jim Hopper._ “Don’t wanna hold you up so I’m gonna hit the road,” he points a thumb over his shoulder and takes a step back.

“Actually, could you do me a favour?” Joyce asks. “Will’s at El’s. Helping her redecorate or something. And my shift ends late. Could you…” she trails off, unsure.

“Yeah, uh. Yeah sure. Will’s the one with the stupid hair?”

Joyce places a hand on her chest in faux offence.

Billy tuts, rolling his eyes. “C’mon Mrs. Byers, let’s be real.”

She laughs.

**...**

Billy’s had the misfortune of fraternizing with all of Max’s friends. Mike is _annoying_. Almost as annoying as his sister, keyword being _almost._ It’s probably something they both inherited from their dear ol’ dad.

Lucas is… well, Billy’s been avoiding talking to him for.. _obvious_ reasons.

Dustin talks too much, and usually it’s just him catapulting insult after insult in Billy’s direction, each one more sophisticated than the one before.

El is okay. He’s only hung out with her once, but she was cool. Less judgemental. Still a total fucking weirdo but the lesser of all evils.

Will however, Will’s slowly and steadily climbing up the list. He’s quiet, just like his brother and just like Joyce. But his quietness isn’t a product of lordly airs. He’s not like other kids his age. He’s not bratty and self-absorbed. He’s not like Max and he’s not like Mike ‘big-mouth’ Wheeler, and he’s certainly not like Dustin. He’s a lot like El, though. Reticent without meaning to be.

“You mute?”

Will looks over at him from the passenger seat. “No,” he answers after a moment. “Just don’t know what to say to you.”

Billy shrugs. “Anythin’, man,” he answers. “It’s a fuckin twenty-minute drive to your mom’s. I _need_ small talk.”

“Do you like my mom?” Will asks, like the words were queued up and just waiting for incentive.

Billy plays it casual, takes a deep drag of his cigarette and slings his arm out the window to ash it. “She’s cool.”

“Do you like, _like_ like her?” Will prompts.

“Nah. I have a type.”

“Like Mrs. Wheeler?”

_Like Steve Harrington,_ Billy was on the verge of saying. He’s stunned by how casually it was going to roll off his tongue.

“_Eh,_” he says, ignoring the rapid beat of his heart. “Like Tina. You should see the knockers on that bitch.”

Will’s face scrunches up. “_Dude_. Gross.”

Billy grins sharply at him. “What about you, _William?_ What’s _your_ type?”

“It’s Will,” Will corrects timidly. “And I don’t—” he cuts himself off and shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“_You don’t know?_ What? You never had a girlfriend?” Billy arches a brow. “Loser.”

It’s playful. Well, Billy _thought_ it came off as playful until Will slumped, looking an eerily lot like his older brother.

“Yeah,” he takes a breath. “I guess I am.”

Billy glances at him. “I was just fuckin’ with you.”

Will nods. “I know.”

He doesn’t sound all too convinced that Billy was messing with him, or better yet, that he isn’t _actually_ a loser. Billy drums his fingers against the steering wheel, sucking his teeth to fill the silence. Will’s twiddling his thumbs, leg bouncing patiently. Billy feels a sudden and unexpected pang of guilt, so he clears his throat and shifts in the seat. “Between you and me, Byers,” he stops to inhale around his cigarette, “I’ve never had a girlfriend either.”

The rest of the drive is silent.

**...**

Billy dreads the second he steps through the front door.

Neil lifts his head, eyes hooded drunkenly. When he catches sight of his son, he refills his glass and pushes it in Billy’s direction.

“Hi,” Billy greets heavily. He walks over, hesitates for a second before taking his seat at the table, opposite his father.

“Drink,” Neil says tersely.

Billy does. Welcomes the burn the liquor leaves in its wake.

“How’s your back?” Neil suddenly asks.

It startles Billy more than he’s willing to admit. He tries keeping it cool when he says, “Fine. Doesn’t hurt.”

Neil nods once, running his fingers through his hair. He doesn’t seem interested in drawing the conversation out, and frankly, Billy isn’t feeling it either. So he gets up and turns to leave.

“We’re strapped for cash right now,” Neil declares. He takes another gulp of alcohol and slumps back in the wooden chair, making it creak.

Billy spins to him.

“Been taking it out on you.”

Glancing away with an eye-roll of blasé boredom, Billy scratches his nose and tamps down the laughter bubbling up in his throat. “Okay,” he nods.

“Sorry if I hurt you.”

Billy hasn’t heard that in years. _Always_ uttered so _carelessly_, so guilt-free. _If. If_ I hurt you. Two letters. Two trivializing letters that should nullify the apology entirely. And despite knowing how _unsorry_ Neil is, Billy _softens_. Every. _Fucking_. Time.

This time, he nods again. “Go to bed, dad,” his voice is hoarse with emotion that’s probably clear on his features.

Neil stands up, stumbling a little. Billy’s quick to move closer and balance him, wrapping an arm around his neck. Neil leans against him heavily, stinking of alcohol and Susan’s cheap perfume.

It’s the closest thing to a hug Billy’s ever gotten from him.

**...**

“Hope you passed my message on to your parents, Harrington,” Billy says in lieu of a normal greeting like a normal human being. He’s walking loftily, _lazily,_ like the school’s his kingdom. But Steve has to hand it to him, he does have his calculus book tucked beneath his arm. And… well, he does look a little kingly. That thought is the one that makes him look away, internally scolding himself for it.

“Yeah, no,” he answers.

“Curt,” Billy comments, grin toothy, and leans his shoulder against the locker beside Steve’s. “I like it.”

“Good for you,” Steve’s words come out muffled around his wallet. After an extended minute of shuffling, he pulls the wallet out and looks at Billy again. “What the fuck do you want, man?”

Billy’s stupid grin turns to a lopsided smirk. He looks Steve over. “Tsk, _vulgar,_ Harrington. What’s got your panties in a wad?” He asks, amused. When Steve ignores him, he goes on. “You know where I can find Buckley?”

“Buckley? Robin?” Steve echoes. “She’s in class. That started _five_ minutes ago, by the way,” he taps a finger on his watch to stress on how late they both are to their respective classes. Then, “Why?”

“Unfinished business,” Billy elusively responds.

Steve gives him a contemplative look, like he’d get a clear answer if he looks long enough, then he waves a hand in surrender and runs it through his hair. “Whatever. Catch her at break or something.”

He brushes past Billy with a huff that seemed aimed more at himself than at Billy.

Billy looks over his shoulder, watching him disappear around the corner with a fond smile.

**...**

Robin spits in his face.

Not figuratively. She actually spits at him when he tries to threaten her.

He thought he was doing a good job, all close proximity and low, menacing tones.

It goes like this. During breaktime, he walks over to her table. Puts on a real nice voice as he asks her friends if he can steal her away for a moment and revels in the way they blush and barely contain their stutters.

“I don’t know what the fuck you think you know—” he starts, “but you’re not as _smart_as you think you are.”

She leans back against the sink, shrugging a shoulder. “I don’t know, man. My teachers would disagree.”

Billy leans in close, their noses nearly touching. “If I find out you told anyone about…” he trails off, not really knowing how to address what she knows without _saying it._Whether it was because of his shame or because _saying it_ would make it even more true to both their ears, he didn’t know.

“About your crush on Steve Harrington?” She offers, more to tease him than to help him out. She places a hand on his chest and pushes him away. Billy goes willingly, stepping back with a dangerous glint in his eyes. “You ever heard of personal space?”

“Listen, Hargrove,” Robin adjusts her top and straightens her back. “Your life isn’t my business.”

“Damn fucking right it isn’t,” Billy hisses.

“But I’m not the type to go around detecting people’s _weaknesses_ and using it against them. I’m not that _low_.” The way she says _‘low’_ makes Billy think that maybe she meant to say _‘you’_. “If we’re done here, I’d like to go back to my friends, _fop._”

She approaches the door with a gait that makes Billy feel like he just lost some game.

“You’re not his type,” he says, adamant to have the final word.

Robin turns to look at him. “And you think I care… _why_ exactly?” Her red lips pull into a wry smile.

“Oh, cut the horse shit,” Billy clicks his tongue, “you remembered what class you shared with him. You couldn’t stop asking what pretty blonde _Tammy Thompson_ saw in him. Tell me, Buckley, you in denial or just playin’ hard to get?”

Robin deflates. Then she’s stalking towards him and spitting in his face.

Billy, shocked and a little disgusted, feels euphoric. “Yeah? I found you out?” He laughs, quiet at first, then he’s _howling_ like a fucking maniac.

She storms over to the door and grabs the handle, falters, before she turns to look at him. “You’re full of shit,” she informs him dryly. He’s looking in the mirror, fixing his hair with a self-satisfied smile. “You’re right about one thing, though. I _was_ jealous,” she pauses, lips parted around pending words. When she smiles, it’s as weak and forced as her following words. “Just not of Tammy.”

Billy doesn’t hear the slam of the door over the pounding of his heart.

**...**

Robin’s _gay._

Holy fucking shit, she’s gay. And she chose _Billy_ out of _everyone_ to confide in.

“Your hair looks like shit,” he states, not even looking at Max as he switches through channels on TV. Bullying her is just muscle memory by now.

“Yeah, at least it’s _just_ my hair, unlike you and your stupid _face_,” Max mutters sleepily. She throws herself on the sofa heavily and lifts her feet onto the table. “They gone yet?”

Billy settles on a stupid cartoon and puts the remote down next to him. “Your show’s on,” he grins. It makes her huff and press her finger to the power button to turn the TV off. “Is who gone?”

“Mom and Neil,” Max elaborates. “They’re leaving town to visit grandma, she’s sick or something.”

That’s brand new information that overwhelms him with an unutterable _joy_. As if on cue, Neil and Susan appear at the door.

“Feet off the table, Maxine,” Neil says sternly.

He doesn’t see her when she caricatures him. Billy does, looks away to stifle his laughter.

“We’ll be back soon,” Susan says kindly. “If you need anything, I left a number on the fridge. Money’s in the cabinet—”

_“Economize,”_ Neil cuts in.

Billy rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. Have a good time.”

Susan steps behind the couch to lean down and give Max a kiss on the cheek. Max wipes at the lipstick mark with a groan.

Billy doesn’t expect anything from Susan, but she places a hand on his head in a kind manner. “Get along you two.”

“Whatever,” Billy mutters, ducking out of her touch. “Watch the hair.”

She doesn’t _seem_ offended. Just offers a minute smile and leaves.

“She’s trying, you know,” Max says, taking offence on her mother’s behalf.

“Yeah, well I already have a mom,” Billy answers. He manages to curb the anger beginning to surface, leg shaking patiently and a muscle in his jaw feathering.

“Who isn’t around,” Max crosses her arms over her chest, head lifted and eyes focussed on some spot on the wall.

“And whose fucking fault is that?” Billy fires back, the anger he’s been trying to bury bleeding into his words. “Huh, _Maxine?_”

“It’s _Max,_” she snaps. “And _stop_ blaming me! I didn’t _mean to!_”

“Like fuck you didn’t!” Billy shouts. “_You_were the one who fucking _told_ him.”

“Ha! Sorry for not knowing sending a damn letter to your _mom_ is a _fucking crime!_" Max cries out, flailing her arms in frustration.

So many words queue up in Billy’s throat, but they dissipate before he can let them out. He opens and closes his mouth, then keeps it closed, jaw working.

His anger sublimes to something less severe. Something that makes his head hang and his chin jut in an endeavor to ground himself. Beside him, Max’s shoulders slump. “Can’t you— Can’t you like, send her a letter from here? I mean, I know Hawkins is a pile of crap but it has to have _post offices._”

He doesn’t immediately answer. Doesn’t feel like having this conversation with _Maxine_ of all people, so he rests his head back. “Nah,” he replies, flourishing a hand halfheartedly.

He sounds a little defeated, _tired_, a little alien even to his own ears. And he can tell Max _likes_ this. Whatever _this_ is. Because somewhere deep down, a part of him likes it too, even if the rest of him isn’t entirely comfortable. He feels like the durable wall between them is starting to wear thin. And just _thinking_ it makes him sidle away from Max a few inches. “Man, fuck economizing. Get off your ass and order us some fucking pizza.”

**...**

The doorbell rings at six pm.

“Maxine! Get the door!”

Max ignores him. The ringing of the bell turns to a tuned banging against the door.

“Go easy on the damn door!” Billy yells, intentionally slowing his stride just to raise whoever’s-on-the-other-side-of-the-door’s hackles. He swings the door open, opens his mouth to snarl something mean but stops short when he sees Harrington.

Steve lets out a laugh, a surprised breathy thing that makes Billy want to _hide_. He has _curlers_ in his hair. “Man, I knew those curls weren’t natural,” Steve brushes his fingers through his own hair like he’s rubbing it in how natural his is. “Where’s Jonathan and his camera when you need them?”

“This stuff brings the curls out, Harrington,” Billy corrects. He leans heavily on the side of the door, glancing over Steve’s shoulder. “He’s probably out there somewhere. You know how _‘out in the open’_ isn’t his thing.”

The sudden laugh Steve lets out shocks even Steve. He covers his mouth. “That wasn’t funny, man.”

Billy holds back a smile. “What are you doin’ here? Shouldn’t you be with your folks doin’ whatever you rich people do?”

Steve’s face falls. He shifts to the opposite foot and hooks a thumb into his front pocket. “They bailed.”

Billy sobers up, stands straighter. “Aw, man. Don’t take it too hard,” he says. “Not havin’ your parents around is a blessing I’m just startin’ to see.”

“Oh, your dad’s outta town?”

“Yeah. Max’s grandma’s about to croak or somethin’.” Billy looks _happy_ about this.

“Cruel wording,” Steve mumbles. “Uh, is Max here? I promised to chaperone today.”

Billy looks over his shoulder and startles Steve with his shout. “Maxine! Harrington’s here for you!” He looks back at Steve. “You hear how fucking weird that sounds? That’s how fucking weird it is for an eighteen year old to drive kids around town.”

“Christ’s sake,” Steve mutters under his breath. “I’m not doing whatever it is you _think_ I’m doing, Billy.”

Billy blinks. He believes him. He knows Steve isn’t _that._ But he derives some sweet _sweet_pleasure driving Steve up the wall by mentioning it whenever he gets the chance. “Whatever,” he heaves.

“You could tag along and see for your—” Steve doesn’t have the chance to finish that offer.

Billy scrunches his face in disgust and shakes his head. “Not interested in your freak club. Cool people regulations, you wouldn’t understand,” he steps back to let Max out. “Enjoy doin’ whatever you weirdos _don’t_ do!” He calls out after them.

Steve flips him the bird without looking back.

He watches the car disappear from the driveway with an unabating urge to find out why Steve is even friends with those losers. His thoughts stop cold when he recalls the bright smile on Harrington’s face the day his parents were supposed to visit. And it finally, _finally_ dawns on him.

Steve’s _lonely_.


	7. Chapter 7

Robin’s gay.

Ever since Billy’s become cognizant with this fact, he’s been seeing Hawkins High in a whole new light. He’s been seeing _Hawkins_ in a whole new light.

Back in California, he knew a guy or two who had shown interest in him. It wasn’t considered _normal_, but it was _heard of_. And that was as good as it got for Billy.

Hawkins is _such_ a _benighted_ place that Billy hadn’t even contemplated the prospect of same-sex attraction.

He hates that the knowledge alone makes him calm a little. Not _entirely_. He hates Hawkins with a fucking vengeance. But it has an effect, palliative rather than curative but _positive_ all the same.

He’s trying to pay attention to history class, but his mind keeps drifting back to that stupid interaction with Buckley. He hates to admit, but under all the jittery relief he feels, he can sense some guilt. A ceaseless _single_ butterfly in his gut telling him he was in the wrong. He should apologize. He should stick his fucking neck out by _stooping down to her level and apologizing_ after she _spat in his face_. Like fuck he’s gonna apologize. She spat in his face then told him she’s gay. That’s like, the peak of stupidity. He hopes she’s feeling scared he’d expose her. She deserves it. She can stew in her own fucking juice.

**...**

“Squint super hard, Hargrove.”

Billy arches a brow.

“Like, _super_ super hard,” Robin emphasizes. “You’ll probably glimpse the fuck I _could’ve_ given had that apology sounded a _little_ more believable.”

Billy scoffs. “Oh, fuck _off_.”

Robin smiles, nice and slow, before she pats him on the arm in a _there there_ manner that has him shaking her off with a rough shrug.

“All is well, Hargrove,” she says, eyes roving the corridor before settling on Steve, standing lamely at his locker and taking his time pulling his books out. “He’s cute.”

“He isn’t,” Billy doesn’t look at Steve. _Can’t_. Doesn’t want the fact he’s _inherently wrong_ or some shit rubbed in his face. His hands clench at his sides. He has to physically hold back from squeezing his eyes shut and getting his heartbeat under control. _‘So that’s why you’ve been staring at yourself in the mirror like some faggot’._

The words repeat themselves over and over again in his head, until they start tripping over each other and the only prominent one is the one that stings the most. _Faggot._

“Earth to Hargrove,” Robin snaps her fingers in front of him, bringing him back down.

“Yeah, uh—” his voice sounds gruffy. He clears his throat, plasters a smirk on. “Not as cute as Tammy.”

Robin _blushes_. Like, neck and cheeks and all. She punches his shoulder, makes him laugh a little too loud.

“Yo, Hargrove!” Tommy appears at Billy’s side, peering over his shoulder at Robin. He looks her over, assessing. “Huh. You can do better,” he says, like she’s an ornament for sale.

Carol stands at his other side, curling a strand of hair around her finger and chewing gum as she looks Robin over, the same way Tommy had. Once Robin’s pencil skirt and plaid red top fully registers, Carol leans over, cupping Tina’s ear, and whispers, _“she’s a total bimbette,”_ loud enough for Robin to hear, eyeing her in her peripheral.

Robin looks fairly unimpressed. “Takes one to know one,” she says. Then turns around and slams her locker shut.

Billy smirks after her.

“What’s your damage, dude?” Tommy asks, checking Robin out as she walks off. “She’s like, a _two_ on a good day.”

Billy aims a pointed glare at him. It has Tommy stepping back with his hands held up. “Chill.”

**...**

Billy sits behind her in English. He’s never noticed her before, but now that they shared a few words and a secret, English seems a little more fun.

“Having blackmail material on each other doesn’t make us friends,” she pointedly says over her shoulder. “We’re not gonna talk about mutual interests and manicure each other’s nails. Got it?”

Billy cocks a brow, mostly because he hasn’t spoken a single word to her. “Pull your horns in, _Buckley_. I’m not interested in ruining my reputation.”

Robin swipes her tongue over her lips to hide her smile and goes back to her business.

Then, leaning back without turning her attention away from the teacher, she whispers, “you’re not his type, y’know.”

Billy snickers. “No shit. I’ve got a dick.”

“Irrelevant,” Robin states. Like she knows something Billy _doesn’t_. Like she knows something _Steve_ doesn’t. “He likes prissy brats like _Nancy Wheeler_.”

Billy’s grin freaking lounges across his face as he leans forward, closer to her, and interlaces his fingers atop his desk. “I dunno about _mutual interests_, Buckley. But I’ve never met someone who doesn’t like the Wheeler Whore.”

“Whore?” Robin turns in her seat. “That chick’s a total _prude_, man.”

Billy laughs, slumping back in his seat with a hand on his stomach. She laughs along, covering her mouth with a hand to avoid attracting attention.

The interaction thaws out the wall between them.

Billy’s never been that great at making friends. But Robin makes it seem a _little_ easy. Makes him smile and laugh. Makes him feel a _little_ less hated. A _little_ less depraved.

**...**

“Can’t Neil’s mom get a stroke and die or something?” Max asks out of nowhere.

Neil and Susan are unpacking upstairs. Max’s sitting on the sofa, idly switching through channels, and Billy’s reading _The Art of War_.

The second Max says that, a laugh bursts out of him unbridled. He looks up at her and glares at her victorious smile. “Ha-_ha_, Maxine. Congrats for reviving the oldest fucking joke in the book,” he says, a hint of amusement lilting his words.

Neil walks into the sitting room, pulling his jacket off as he begins to speak. “I found you a job.”

“A job?” Billy asks, perplexed. “I don’t need a—”

“You’ll do what I tell you to do,” Neil turns to look at his son, a threat in his eyes. A dare to challenge. “Which is, getting a job. Am I making myself clear?”

Billy swallows down all the reasons Neil _isn’t_ making himself clear. “Yeah.”

Max distracts herself with a random channel on TV.

“Good,” Neil places both hands on Billy’s shoulders. “Now go to your room, clean up so you look less like the _queer_ you are,” he emphasizes his point by pulling on the earring dangling from his ear, not hard enough to tear but hard enough to _hurt_. “And meet me in the car.”

Neil spends the entire ride talking to Billy about _obligation_ and _responsibility_. About how they’re _short on money_ and it’s Billy’s _job_ as well as his to support the household. Billy hears everything without actually _listening_.

He gets the job.

**...**

Joyce’s just locking up when Billy arrives at the shop. He apologizes with a voice too weak to be his.

“Hey, don’t be sorry, come here,” she pats the hood of her car. “You got a smoke?” She asks once they’re shoulder-to-shoulder.

He hands her one and lights it for her.

“What’s wrong?” She asks.

Billy doesn’t know where to begin. There’s _so much_ he has to say. So much he _wants to_ say. And so little words rising in his throat. He takes a breath, exhales it shakily and hangs his head. “What was Mr. Byers like?” He finally asks.

Joyce makes a sound, somewhere between disgust and surprise. “A nightmare,” she answers plainly. “Lonnie was—” she sighs, “a lazy pig. Bad worker, an even worse husband. The _worst_ father. He was an overall shitty man. Why?”

Billy shrugs a shoulder. “No reason.”

Joyce pushes her shoulder into his lightly, makes him sway a little with the impact. “Your dad giving you a hard time?”

Billy’s jaw tautens. “Somethin’ like that.”

Joyce hesitates. Billy can almost hear the cogs turning in her head. He speaks first. “She left when I was a kid.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Eh. Don’t blame her. I jus’ don’t understand how your ex-husband was a prick and your kids _aren’t_," he doesn’t say it in a tone that suits the words. Joyce softens all the same.

“You think that’s on you?” She asks gently.

“You don’t?” Billy turns his eyes on her with a lopsided smile.

“Not entirely,” she quips. “Listen, Billy. Lonnie.. he was _cruel_. Traditional masculinity cruel. He forced Jonathan to kill a rabbit when he was _ten_.”

Billy hisses, sympathetic. “That why he’s so…” he does a _travesty_ of Jonathan’s posture, clicking an imaginary camera. “Sorry,” he apologizes when he realizes how rude it was.

“He used to call Will _fag_ and _queer_.. _all_ the time.”

“Is he?” Billy can’t help but ask.

“You and Hopper are two peas in a pod,” Joyce huffs, playful. “I never cared. Will is my _boy_ and I love him, more than _anything_.”

Billy’s throat feels dry. He feels like all the water in his system is blurring his vision. He wonders if he’ll ever be as lucky as Will. As Jonathan.

“Lonnie’s no longer a part of their lives, Billy,” Joyce rasps, flicking her cigarette to the floor. “That’s the difference between you and them.”

Billy nods, seeking comfort in the words between her lines. _You’ll get away. You’ll have the chance to be better. To be good._

“I didn’t give him the chance to be an effective father figure, I weeded him out,” she explains. “Jonathan and Will.. they’re _healing_. The only parental figure you _have_ is your father and you—” she lags, taking a breath. “You can’t expect yourself to heal in the same environment you _got sick_.”

Billy stops breathing for a second. He feels like a hefty weight was just lifted off his shoulders, the hope she has in him being the crane.

“You’re both dealing with it differently. Coping mechanisms aren’t always the same. Will’s clinging onto his childhood. Jonathan’s.. well, you know Jonathan,” she runs a hand up and down her arm. “He’s getting better. _You,_ you’re handling things your own way. The same way your _father_ handles things. But you’re _just a boy_ and you have time—”

“How much time?” Billy cuts in. He doesn’t mean to sound so harsh, but doesn’t pay any mind to apologizing for it. “Huh? How much time till I’m just like him, throwing my _own_ kid up against a wall and beating the livin’ fuck out of him? How long till I’m _starving_ him because he was late to dinner? Or _punishing_ him because of his _sister’s_ mistakes?” His voice shakes, first with anger, then with a crushing pain that’s enough to have a fleet tear sliding down his cheek. Enough to have Joyce pushing her small frame off the car and pulling him down into her embrace. It’s warm and gentle and so so _painful_ that Billy can’t help the rest of his tears. Despite how much he wants to wrap his arms around her, he doesn’t. But he does allow himself the comfort of burying his face in her shoulder.

“I’ve got you,” she coos, carding her fingers through his hair, other hand rubbing soothing circles against his back.

And he lets it out. He doesn’t _weep_, or _bawl_. He just _cries_. Low, heart-wrenching cries as he shakes in her arms. It feels like he’s lamenting his youth.

**...**

He feels better the next morning, all that’s left of the pain from the day before being a throbbing in his temples that he wills away with pills.

He flirts his way through classes, bickers with Buckley twice or thrice, talks back to teachers. And on the basketball court, he teases Steve with abrasive words, backhanded compliments, and lots of tongue until they both end up benched.

It’s all back to normal until they’re under the spray of the shower. Billy thinks his fuckboy front is still intact. He’d snatched Steve’s shampoo and poured a generous amount on his palm to clean himself off. And just to annoy Steve, he poured the rest of the bottle onto the ground with an unapologetic _‘oops, my bad’_ and turns around to hide his smugness.

Then he feels it. Like a touch to a raw wound. Emotional rather than physical.

Steve’s fingers brush the marks on his back. Billy almost forgot about them entirely until now.

He stills, breath hitching in his throat. It feels intimate, having someone touch the most vulnerable side of him. He thinks that if he focuses on the touch enough, he’d be able to count each ridge and whorl at the tips of Steve’s fingers.

He wants to say something, but his eyes only shut as Steve traces the scars delicately, mapping each one as if he’s committing it to memory. Billy feels lightheaded, breathless, warm, and so, _so overwhelmed_.

He chances a look over his shoulder, not knowing what to expect. Steve’s lips are pulled into a thin line, jaw ticking. He looks angry. So fucking angry and Billy wants, so badly, to _kiss him._

Once Steve’s hand reaches Billy’s shoulder, Billy turns around, fast enough to grasp his wrist before his hand's on him again. Steve draws his gaze up, and he looks squarely into Billy’s eyes. He looks and looks until Billy feels like his entire being is laid bare for him to see.

He’s rough when he lets go of Steve’s wrist. Then he’s ambling out without a backward glance.

**...**

_“Billy?!”_

“Hshhhh- _shhh!_”

“Hargrove? Like, Billy _Hargrove_?” Dustin’s panicking more than Steve did when he found out he’s attracted to the male species. “The dude who like, _broke_ your face?”

“He didn’t _break_—” Steve cuts himself short with a groan. “Why is everyone ignoring the punches _I_ threw? He _bled_. That has to count for _something!_”

“Mad Max’s _brother_ Billy?!”

“_Stepbrother,_” Steve gratuitously corrects. “_Yes!_ Billy Hargrove. Douchebaggery extraordinaire. Blah blah blah.”

Dustin starts pacing. And when he pulls his cap off to run his fingers through his hair, Steve knows it’s getting _serious_. “Why?” he asks.

And well. _Fair._

“That’s a great question,” Steve answers, lifting his forefinger matter-of-factly, “also one I have no answer to. The heart wants what it wants.”

“Then your heart needs serious help,” Dustin comments. “He’s not even hot.”

“He _is!_” Steve exclaims, seemingly offended on Billy’s behalf.

“Is not.”

“Is too.”

“He broke your nose, Steve,” Dustin opts for the more logical route. “He beat the living shit out of you.”

Steve scowls. Fair point.

“That’s two zero, Steve.”

“Two _one_,” Steve retorts. “He’s hot. That’s a point right there.”

Dustin blinks blandly.

“He seems sorry, *okay?”* Steve throws his arms up.

“Did he _say_ he’s sorry?” Dustin retorts.

“No, but—”

“Three one,” Dustin interrupts. “Billy Hargrove is now officially on the _no-date list_.”

“We don’t _have_ a no-date list,” Steve furrows his brows as Dustin pulls out a notepad.

“Now we do.”

**...**

Erica Sinclair is a pain in the ass.

“What’s the magic word?” She’s intoning from behind the front door.

“Tell my fucking sister I’m here to pick her up!” Billy barks.

“Magic wooord,” Erica sings.

Billy mutters a long string of profanities, earning a tsk-tsk from the bitch on the other side of the door. “Please,” he finally says on a breath.

“I can’t _hear_ you.”

“Please,” he grits, louder.

She opens the door to grin at him, all teeth. “Max isn’t here.”

“You _little_—” she slams the door in his face before he can finish off that insult. _Bitch._

Billy likes the attitude.

“Where is she?!”

This time, Erica opens the door only a little, wide enough to peek an eye through. “My information isn’t free of charge.”

Billy’s cigarette’s wagging between his lips with each insult he blurts as he pulls out a dollar. He hands it to her. “Where’s Maxine?”

“Not here.”

Billy huffs. “I fuckin’ know that, _dipshit_,” he says sarcastically, “where’s your stupid brother?”

Erica looks at his wallet expectantly.

Billy wants to kill himself. He pulls out another dollar.

“He’s in his room,” Erica says, smiling sweetly.

By the time Billy finds out that Max is at El’s because she wanted a _boy-free night_ after she’d broken up with Lucas for the second— _third_ time, Erica’s tucking ten dollars into her pocket. “It was great doing business with you, White Man.”

“Fuck off.”

He’s a few steps away from the Sinclairs’ front door before he’s knocking on it again, Joyce’s words from the night repeating themselves in his head.

_“Who is it?”_ Erica asks.

“Who do you think it is, shitbird?” Billy asks, voice dripping sarcasm.

She opens the door and cocks a hip, brow raised. “What do you want now, _White Man?_”

Billy purses his lips, glancing away. “Your brother home?”

Erica rolls her eyes, looking over her shoulder. “Lucas! Uncouth _white_ dude asking for you!”

Lucas Sinclair appears at the door a minute later. A flash of unrestrained fear crosses his features before he schools his expression. He ushers Erica away and, with a lot of difficulty, he looks at Billy. “Max isn’t here,” he says, waving a hand. “I’ll call Hopper and—”

“I don’t care,” Billy interrupts. “Not here for her.”

Lucas frowns. “So, what? Here to threaten me again?” He asks. He’s playing it cool, acting unfazed. He reminds Billy of himself when confronting Neil. Except in this scenario, he’s less _Billy_ and more _Neil_. The comparison alone makes bile rise in his throat.

“No,” he says on a breath. “Listen, man. There’s no hard feelings, right?” It’s not at all what he had in mind. This whole _attempted truce_ is so spontaneous he hadn’t even contemplated the wording.

Lucas shakes his head. “You’re ridiculous,” he moves to shut the door but Billy’s quicker, steps in and places a boot between the door and its frame. “Go away, dude. My parents are home and—”

“Listen, Sinclair,” Billy forces a smile, it looks menacing if anything. His following words leaving his mouth through tightly clenched teeth, “I don’t _appreciate_ you disrespecting—”

Lucas opens the door and slams it hard on Billy’s foot.

“Son of a _bitch_—” Billy grits, but gives the kid what he wants and removes his foot.

“Come back when you’ve got a real apology.”

Billy can hear Erica’s _“boom!”_ as her brother slams the door shut.

Billy thinks he did a good job. _Can do better_. But it’s a good start.

**...**

To Billy, a party in Hawkins is an escape. From domestic chaos into another type of pandemonium. One where he’s appreciated and wanted and fucking _worshipped_. Where girls want to touch him and guys want to _be him_.

To Steve, a party in Hawkins is an escape. From crushing solitude into familiar wildness. Where everyone just wants to have fun, to fuck and fight and drink.

Somehow, they both end up at Vicki’s party but solely in each other’s company.

They’re sitting side by side. Billy’s back hurts from the friction against the brick wall. Steve’s wearing a thick jacket, he doesn’t seem bothered. There’s pumping music playing in the background, making the ground vibrate beneath them. It’s anchoring.

“Know how they say you see your life when you’re in your mom?”

“That’s—” Steve laughs quietly. “Gross wording, dude. But yeah.”

Billy licks his lips and lolls his head to the side. "I don’t believe it,” he slurs.

“Why?” Steve asks. He’s not interested. Really, he’s got enough on his mind and doesn’t want to listen to others complaining. But this isn’t just _anyone_. It’s _Billy_. It’s good to know he even _has_ problems. And, well, he has a nice voice when he’s drunk. Deep and scratchy.

“I’d have fucking strangled myself with my umbilical cord if I’d actually known I’d be movin’ to fucking Hawkins,” Billy chuckles bitterly.

Steve hangs his head, grimacing. “That bad?”

“Worse,” Billy rasps, leaning heavily against Steve. “S’tired,” he whispers, breath hot against Steve’s cheek. He stinks of alcohol.

Steve doesn’t mind.


	8. Chapter 8

He’s getting used to it— waking up with an unabating pain in his temples and at the base of his skull, throat aching and mouth dry. He’s also used to the overwhelming desire to curl into a ball and _die_.

He creeks one eye open against the dull light seeping through the blinds.

_Where the fucking hell is he?_ He trails his tongue over each crack and chap of his lips before he lets the interior of the room sink in. The plaid walls are hideous. So hideous that Billy has to close his eyes again and sling an arm over his face, breathing out.

The night before comes to him in flashes. Keg standing, the chanting of _Hargrove_accompanied by pumping fists, the guys clapping him on the back, the girls being all over him.

Then finding Jonathan in the corner — looking a little out of place — and leaning close into his personal bubble to whisper a _‘public places not your thing, Byers?’_ while clicking his tongue, the closest approximation to the sound of a camera. He remembers Jonathan looking away, Billy pinching his chin between his fingers and forcing him to look back at him. ‘Huh, _Johnny-Boy?_’. He remembers Byers muttering a stop, and slapping his hand away hesitantly, like he doesn’t want to defend himself but doesn’t want to be seen as a coward in the eyes of those watching. He recalls laughing throatily at the _weakness_ of it before Nancy’s standing between them, pushing her tiny hands into Billy’s chest to get him as far away from Jonathan as possible. He’d stepped back, eyes fixed on Jonathan, smirk unwavering as he called him _pussy_ for having a _girl_ defend him.

There’s a blank space between that part and the part where he’s stepping out for a cigarette. Finding Harrington sitting on the porch like the fucking loser he is. Standing behind him and nudging the toe of his boot into his ribs like the asshole _he_ is.

Another blank paragraph before he’s leaning back against the shed of Vicki’s house, sharing a smoke with some trashy, pounding music playing in the background. He can vaguely, _very_vaguely, remember the way his heart thudded heavily every time his lips wrapped around the filter. A second-hand kiss.

And after that, nothing.

Presently, he relaxes into the pillows, trying to melt away the shame he feels at being so mean to the son of the woman who comforted him not even two days ago. He’s not going to apologize to Jonathan. That dude’s a fucking creep. Besides, he’s handed out enough apologies in the past week to last him a whole damn _lifetime._

Once his mind silences, he realizes how quiet the room is. How quiet the whole house feels. It sends a cold chill up his spine. Where _is he?_

His bones ache when he flings the duvet off his body. The room’s pretty warm for a winter morning. He sits up and grabs for the pills and glass of water placed on the bedside table. The water tastes off from sitting around for at least a few hours. Billy doesn’t mind as long as his throat doesn’t feel like a desert.

It takes him a moment to realize his shirt was discarded sometime last night, leaving his freshest bruise on view for all to see. For _him_ to see. He wants to throw up. His pants are unbuttoned, zipped down but still clutching his waist tightly.

And he realizes where he is. He remembers mumbling _‘m’cock tastes expensive. fucking Paco Rabanne, Harrington’_ and he remembers Steve giving up with a muttered curse and aggressively tucking him in, _‘yeah, yeah. wouldn’t expect anything less from King Hargrove.’_

Billy rubs a hand down his features, huffing a laugh under his breath. It turns to a pained groan halfway through and he rolls his head on his shoulders to relieve a bit of the ache before forcing himself to his feet.

He rummages around for his shirt; nearly gives up until he finds it sprawled on the wooden floor with a fucking _cat_ sleeping on it. Himalayan. Paws curled beneath it and eyes drifted shut like it’s royalty. It’s so fucking _ugly._Just like every other thing in this outmoded piece of shit room. He thinks he’ll have to throw away his shirt once he’s home. Of course, _after_he takes a thorough shower to wash off the smell of lavender detergent clinging to his skin, that is.

“Hey, get off,” he orders, walking over to the feline. “Off!” he shouts.

It just looks up with big blue eyes but doesn’t budge. He lifts a bare foot to nudge it lightly in the stomach, enough to annoy it. But the bitch holds onto his foot, bites benignly into his big toe and rolls onto its back for fucking _tummy rubs._

“Fuck, you’re so ugly,” Billy voices, pulling his foot away from its claws. He bends down and snatches the shirt from under it, makes it roll over with a disgruntled ‘meow’ before it’s pushing itself through the partly open door.

He pulls the fur-speckled shirt on, leaves it unbuttoned as he steps into his boots. Then he plods out the room, takes his time walking the corridor and eyeing the family photos hanging on the wall.

It suddenly occurs to him that he’s never really _seen_ Steve’s parents. They look like stuck up assholes who would look down their noses at him and be nice just because they were raised to treat lesser people with sympathy. It makes him scowl.

He wanders the house aimlessly. It’s _massive_. Massive and empty. All high ceilings and marble carpeted floors. Vases on every surface, paintings on every wall. Billy gets why Steve prefers hanging out with the little eggheads over staying home.

Speaking of Steve, he’s sleeping on a couch, leg slung off it at an awkward angle. _Flexible_. His lips are parted, hair a mess. Billy would appreciate the scenery for a little longer had his eyes not caught sight of the bat leaning against the table a metre away from him. He arches a brow, squints when he sees _nails_ sticking out of it. “What, the fuck?” He whispers to himself, shakes his head and lifts a hand in a _‘‘I don’t even wanna know’_ manner.

He continues his clandestine tour around Steve’s home. The curtains are drawn, so Billy, feeling super generous, decides not to disturb Steve’s sleep by pulling them back and just peeks behind its velvet. And holy fuck, what was going on there?

It was a mess. The ground hidden from view by yellowish leaves. The grass looks like it’d be dead had Steve’s parents not installed water sprinklers. Like the ground, the pool is covered with leaves, looks like it hasn’t been swum in or cleaned in like, years. The gloomy weather doesn’t exactly do much to the freakish atmosphere out there. Billy feels colder suddenly, so he lets go of the curtain and turns around. He doesn’t feel like probing in Steve’s business anymore. Bummer.

Not bothering to leave a note or anything, he grabs his keys off the cabinet beside the door and leaves.

**...**

The mood is dreadful when he steps into his house, almost makes him feel like Steve’s back garden isn’t all so bad.

He forces himself into the kitchen, where Max and Susan are eating quietly. Neil’s face is hidden behind today’s newspaper. “Did someone die or somethin’?” Billy asks, dragging a chair out and plopping down. He reaches over to where Max is playing around with her soggy cereal and pulls the bowl to him. He expects her to complain but she just exhales a relieved sigh and moves to get up.

“Stay put, Maxine,” Neil says. It’s steady and calm. Has her sitting back down slowly, but not without mumbling that her name’s _Max_, not _Maxine._ Neil could care less.

After an extended minute, he folds the newspaper and puts it down. He looks at Billy. “Good of you to join us, Billy,” he says, all gruff and disconcerting. Billy fidgets in his seat and shrugs a shoulder.

“Slept at a friend’s house,” he forces past his mouthful of food. “Would’ve called but—”

“But you were too busy mounting the whore?” Neil offers, brows rising expectantly.

“Gross!” Max sputters. “Do I need to listen to this? I’m irrelevant.”

Billy agrees. She is irrelevant.

Susan puts her fork down neatly and looks at her daughter, then at Neil. “Maybe it’s better we leave you—” she begins.

“You could’ve been dead,” Neil continues, as if Susan and Max hadn’t said anything. His eyes don’t swivel from Billy.

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Billy smirks, and having lost his appetite, he pushes his bowl away. He places his hands on the side of the table and pushes to drag his seat back. As much as he wants to get up and leave to his room, he doesn’t. He just crosses his arms over his chest idly and slumps, knees apart, head tilted sideways and eyes not once leaving Max. Mostly because she’s the least irritating person in the room right now. He wouldn’t mind installing a mirror in the kitchen. Looking closer at Max, he realizes she’s mirroring his posture. It almost makes him smile.

“You think it’s okay to worry us by being so _inconsiderate_?” Neil’s saying, voice sodden with anger instead of the worry he’s claiming he’s able to feel towards Billy. Billy wants to laugh in his face. “To worry your _family_ like that?”

And that’s Billy’s breaking point. He lurches to his feet and throws himself at him, hands bunching in the collar of his shirt. And he fucking _revels_ in the shock on Neil’s face, in the brief flicker of fear in his eyes as Billy leans in close, knuckles blanching in the fabric of his shirt. Susan springs to her feet, tells Billy to stop, to _go to his room_, like she has the _fucking right to_. Max. Max is just as shocked as Neil. Not because it’s surprising that someone would want to cut Neil down to size, but because of Billy’s _courage_ to act on said want. To do something as damn _stupid_ as that.

Billy takes a shaky breath, jaw clenched tightly as he gives his father a little shake. “Susan is _not_my mom,” he whispers. Menacingly low. “You hear me? Livin’ under the same fuckin’ roof you put over my head doesn’t make her my mom,” his lips part. He drags in another breath, exhales it from his nose. There’s so much more he has to say. So much he’d never again have the courage to say out loud. _You hurt her. You drove her away. You took her away from me. You, you, you._

He lets go. Roughly. Neil’s back hits the chair with a flump.

And Billy leaves before the shock can wear off, before Neil can regain enough presence of mind to pummel him to a fucking pulp.

**...**

Nancy’s the last person Steve expects to find when the doorbell rings.

She’s adjusting her rust colored sherpa jacket when he opens the door, all smiles and class. “Nancy, hey,” he says, voice scratchy with sleep. “What are you doing here?”

Nancy looks stunned into silence for a second, like she doesn’t _need_ a reason to be hanging around with her ex. “Oh,” she frowns. “I just— thought I’d check on you?”

Steve lets her in, asks her if she wants to drink anything, to which she shakes her head, then he’s standing in the living room, not knowing what to do or say.

He suddenly feels like a stranger in his own house.

Nancy sits in that way that Steve’s parents would _love._ Back straight, knees and ankles together, legs slanted to the side, hands on her lap. Fucking etiquette extradonaire. Looks like royalty. Looks like she _belongs_ in Steve’s villa.

Steve hates how perfect she is.

“Steve,” Nancy calls, drawing him out of his thoughts.

He blinks, clears his throat and scratches his head. “Yeah, what is it?”

“Sit down,” Nancy laughs, soft and quiet.

He sits back in the couch opposite hers, feigning carelessness. As though he’s not wading through her perfection to find a single flaw that’ll make her shine dimmer than she does. Even if he knows that finding a flaw would only make him ache for her a little more.

Because whatever he feels for _Billy_, it doesn’t come close to what he feels for Nancy. Nancy’s quiet where Steve’s loud. She’s calm where he’s anxious. She’s brave where he isn’t. Steve loves her because she completes him, she’s everything he isn’t. Yin and yang. Duality. Dark-light. What-_the fuck_-ever.

Billy, on the other hand, is a whole different story. Steve likes him for all the wrong reasons. Billy’s all rough, frayed edges. Self-destructive. Full of hate for the world. He’s broken. And fuck Steve for being attracted to everything _broken._

“Are you okay?” Nancy asks. Her voice sounds distant, blurry. “Steve!”

Steve takes a breath, closes his eyes for a second before putting on a smile. “Yeah I’m fine. Just hungover from last night.” He didn’t drink last night. Billy the Asshole needed a babysitter.

“Oh,” Nancy says. “I feel like you’re a little distant these days? How have you been? It’s been forever since we last chatted.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he repeats. “I dunno, Nance. The whole Upside Down shit’s fucked me up a little,” he runs a hand down his face tiredly.

“We’re here for you, you know.”

_You and who? Jonathan? Mike? Fucking Karen who can’t stop lusting after kids half her age?_

Steve wants to say it. Wants to say everything that’s on his mind. Wants to direct all the anger he has for his parents at the closest receptor. Nancy. Nancy _fucking_ Wheeler. With her perfect family and perfect grades and perfect boyfriend and perfect _everything._

She doesn’t know jack shit.

“I know,” he answers, unintentionally callous.

“Ok,” Nancy stands to her feet, walks over to him and leans down to kiss his cheek. Steve _hurts_. “I’ll see you at school?”

“Yeah,” he swallows. “Yeah. See you then.”

**...**

Billy likes to think he’s good at _everything._ He’s good at studying. At cooking and cleaning. At teasing and packing punches. He’s also pretty good at Spanish. Scratch that, he’s got Spanish down to a fine art.

But one thing he’s yet to perfect, is the art of blackmailing a cop.

“So let me get this straight,” Hopper leans forward, fingers interlacing atop his desk like it’s the most complicated situation. “If I don’t let you stay the night, you’ll…” he trails off to let Billy fill in the blank.

“Key your car,” Billy finishes around his cigarette. Hopper licks his smile to get rid of it. “Like, I’ll draw fuckin’ dicks and shit, Hop. Don’t try me.”

“That’s vandalism, kid. I can jail you for a good year,” going by the tone he’s using, it’s obvious Hopper wouldn’t _actually_ do that.

“Great,” Billy claps his hands on his thighs to bring himself to his feet. “Free place for a whole year. Could be worse.”

He only makes it to the door before Hopper’s rolling his eyes. “Wait up, kid,” he says with a sigh. Billy looks over his shoulder at him. “_If, in theory,_ I agree to your terms, you’ll cook?”

Billy’s expression warps with disgust. “_No._ I’m not your bitch, fatso. You could use the diet.”

Hopper chuckles. “You need to watch the attitude if you want to stay over, Hargrove,” he says, shaking his head lightly. “Alright,” he waves a hand in a ‘shoo’ motion. “Wait outside.”

Billy lingers, looks like he wants to say, and Hopper dare _think it, thank you_. But he ends up opening and closing his mouth on a few attempts before he completely gives up and turns to stroll out.

“And Billy?”

“Yeah, chief?”

“I’m big-boned.”

**...**

El is just as freakishly pleasant as she was last time. Billy wouldn’t admit to it, but he likes her. She’s taciturn, and when she _does_ speak, she’s soft-spoken and careful. Billy thinks maybe it’s because she has a pretty limited range of words. She’s also a good source of entertainment. Billy spends an hour putting the most absurd facts in her head and hopes he’ll be around when she states one of them so he gets to hear people laugh at her.

He’s looking around for inspiration for his next ludicrous concoction, but when he sees her writing his latest one down with her dodgy handwriting, he feels a little mean. He laughs quietly, drawing her attention to him. “What?” she says.

“Listen, I was just kiddin’ about that,” he replies. “Didn’t think you were that dense.”

“Dense?”

“Stupid. Dumb. An airhead like your friends,” Billy spells out, slowly for emphasis.

“About the people inside the television being able to see me?”

“About everything,” Billy quips.

He expects her to throw a tantrum, but she just looks down at the notebook she writes words she can’t get her tongue around in, then back up at him from her place on the floor. “Ab— About the moon?”

“What about the moon?” He asks, just to tease her.

She lifts the book to read off it. “The moon.. lands on the earth every night,” she starts, squinting a little.

Billy thinks it’s good exercise for her reading and comprehension. “And?”

“And squa-shes— squashes kids who are not asleep—”

Billy nods slowly.

“—before the— fucking witching hour.”

Billy throws his head back, squirming and clapping his hands with laughter. It makes Eleven smile a little, albeit confused.

“Yeah,” he wheezes out. “Yeah, that was a lie too.”

She slumps, looking at him as she rips the page off her notebook and scrunches it up. Billy can’t say he’s surprised when she throws it at him.

He can say he’s surprised when she flips through the pages and enunciates a _‘fuck you’_ at him, hand in hand with a death glare.

Billy sits up and leans down to lift a hand. “High five me, halfwit.”

**...**

Alright so he may be a pretty bad influence on the weird chick. He may have taught her a nice motley of swear words and told her that stuffing wrappers under the couch is a better option than standing up and going _allll_ the way to the kitchen to throw them away. He also may have shown her his navel piercing when she tapped a finger on his dangling earring and asked what it was, stressing on how pretty it looked, and he may have styled her hair horribly and just all in all been a literal _shoulder devil._

_But._

But he also did some good. He helped her with the reading. He had her stir the sauce for the meal he’d cooked for Hopper with a heavy heart.

And he comforted her when she woke up from the throes of her nightmare.

He couldn’t sleep. And it had nothing to do with the stiffness of the couch he’s sprawled across. His mind just kept drifting back to his dad. An overwhelming fear settling low in his gut every time he thought of going back home.

He knows he’s safe here. He knows he can tell Hopper about everything. But he’s _too weak_ to. Because even with everything Neil keeps putting him through, he loves him.

He loves him and he hates it.

El steps out of her room, looking as glum as he feels. “Hi,” she says shortly when he looks at her.

“Haven’t slept yet?” He asks after clearing his throat.

She walks over to the couch and he groans a complaint before he gets up to let her sit. “Nightmares,” she elucidates tersely.

“Oh,” he pauses, “about what? Mike being more annoying than he already is?”

She smiles like she’s just doing it to humor him.

He pushes his shoulder into hers. “Go to sleep here. I’ll watch your back.”

“What’s on my back?” El asks, rubbing a hand over her shoulder blades as she looks over her shoulder.

“No—” Billy finds himself grinning, shaking his head. “Not literally— I’ll just make sure.. y’know, no one hurts you.”

“Oh, promise?” She doesn’t let him answer, all too eager to shed light on the definition of a _promise_, “It’s something you can’t break.”

“I’m not stupid,” Billy states. “Yeah. Promise or whatever. Wanna hook pinkies too?”

She stays silent as she curls up on the other side of the couch, and just like that, she’s fast asleep.

Billy keeps his promise.

**...**

“I want a piercing.”

Billy and Hopper choke in unison, the former keeping his eyes on his food, smirk faint as the latter looks at him long and hard before looking at his daughter. “You’re not eighteen yet,” he says as calmly as he can, which isn’t so calm.

“I’m seventeen,” Billy inputs, earning himself a glare from Hopper. He places a hand on his chest, the closest thing to an apology Jim will be getting.

“He’s seventeen,” El reiterates.

“And you’re thirteen,” Jim says through a mouthful of food. He points his spoon at her. “No piercings or tattoos until you’re eighteen.”

“I already got a tattoo,” El argues, stern and calm but still managing to pump as much childish petulance as possible into her tone. Billy grins, watching the exchange amusedly.

“No, you didn’t _get_ a tattoo, a tattoo was _put_ on you. Big difference,” Jim stands up and walks over to the sink to clean his plate.

“Ok,” El nods. “Can a piercing be put on me?”

Billy can’t help the laugh that leaves him and the conversation wears off in a stalemate.

**...**

“Listen, kid. I know I made it sound like I don’t want you around,” Hopper says from the driver’s seat. “But you can stay as long as you need.”

Billy reaches for the lever and reclines his seat. “Thanks, chief,” he says casually, lifting his feet onto the dashboard. “Appreciate it.”

“Enough to get your feet _off my dashboard?_”

Billy grins. “Nah.”

They stay silent for a few moments. Billy doesn’t like it because he knows things are about to get serious.

“He didn’t hit you, did he?” Hopper suddenly asks.

“You’re pretty adamant to put my old man behind bars,” Billy answers, smoothly evading the question. “There some feud there, Hop?”

“I don’t want to put him behind bars,” Hopper rebuts. “I think breaking a finger or two would do the trick.”

Billy snorts. “You even allowed to do that?”

“Who’s going to stop me?” Hopper cries out, overly sarcastic. “The _police?!_”

Billy’s laugh is loud and real this time. He presses around on the radio until _You Don’t Mess Around with Jim_ starts playing.

Hopper sings along and Billy wishes, from the very depth of his heart, that he was deaf.

But he’s willing to listen to Jim Hopper’s terrible voice for another few hours if it means procrastinating the inevitable.

…

Neil’s at work. Susan isn’t home either. Billy assumes that since he wasn’t around to chauffeur Maxine, she drove her to school on the way to work.

He takes a quick shower, brushes his teeth and doesn’t even bother with the hair, pulling it back into a loose bun that quickly turns messy when he pulls a muscle tee on and is left with static hair that can maybe, _maybe_ pass as stylish. Truth is, he doesn’t care.

**...**

He owns four identical black leather jackets. Two brown ones. And one maroon. All with a zipper across the chest. All with high collars and a metal button in the corner of their lapels.

And all of them have a slanted _B.H._ engraved in the underside of the left lapel.

Billy feels dumb for not noticing he’d lost one two nights ago when he slept at Steve’s. Even dumber now that he pays closer attention to the leather jacket Steve’s wearing and realizes it’s _his._

The idea alone sends a surge of heat through him, makes him inhale sharply and _look at him._

Steve’s talking with friends, all playful. He’s leaning back against his locker, moving his hands expressively. In a way that has everyone listening to him, entranced. He’s so, achingly _pretty._

Some bitch reaches out and runs her perfectly manicured claws down _Billy’s_ jacket as she says something. Her shoulders are swaying, lip trapped between her teeth and it wouldn’t take a genius to know she’s flirting with Steve.

Steve’s smiling, rolling his eyes fondly, _leaning closer._ It’s a tiny glimpse of the Steve Tommy told Billy about. Billy _wants._

So, he corners him in the bathroom, arms crowding him against the sink. “My, oh my, Harrington. That my jacket?”

Steve arches a brow, confused, then he catches the drift and looks down at his attire. His lips are parted when he looks back up. Billy’s eyes flicker down to them briefly and Steve blanks for just a second before he’s _smirking._ “Man, I knew my parents wouldn’t buy me something like this,” he says, chuckling it off with a shake of his head. Billy doesn’t know if he means as _shitty_ or as _cool_.

He assumes it’s the latter because Steve wouldn’t be wearing it if he didn’t find it easy on the eye. A part of him told him Steve purposely wore it. Knew it was Billy’s. The rest of him said Steve’s a rich motherfucker who has so much in his wardrobe he genuinely thought the jacket was his.

When Steve moves to shrug out of it, Billy’s quick to grip his wrist, stopping him in his tracks. He runs a thumb over the soft skin of Steve’s wrist and leans in unsettlingly close.

It makes Steve turn his head to the side, jaw flexing and throat bobbing like he’s _nervous._

Billy’s lips brush his ear, making him go completely still. Billy can _hear_ him swallow.

“Suits you,” he whispers right against the shell of his ear. His other hand leaves the edge of the sink to run up the leather of Steve’s — _his_ — jacket, to its left lapel. “Keep it. I like havin’ my brand on you,” he scratches down the engravement for emphasis, breathing a damp laugh.

If he listens close enough, he’s sure he’d be able to hear the blood running in Steve’s veins. He sure as hell can feel the pulse underneath the pad of his thumb, steady and potent. Can hear every inhale and exhale. Can smell Steve’s sweat mixing with his gardenia cologne and the leather of the damn jacket. It’s exhilarating, the effect he has on him.

He gets himself together and lets go of Steve’s wrist, one ringed finger at a time. Steve looks at him as he moves back a few steps, tongue trapped between his teeth as he gives him one last once-over. Then he’s shoving his way out the door.

Steve lets out the breath burning his lungs. Replaces it with leather-scented air and turns to lean his weight on the sink.

_“Fuck.”_


	9. Chapter 9

Susan’s home when Billy gets back from school. He can tell from the sound of clanking cookware coming from the kitchen and her low, mellow humming.

He doesn’t bother with a greeting when he goes straight for the fridge. Never has. The only thing he had in common with her was Neil, and Billy sometimes wishes they didn’t even have that.

Her humming stops when she heeds his presence. Billy gives her a quick glance from over the fridge door before continuing his hunt for a can of beer. “How was school?” She asks, characteristically soft.

Billy shrugs a casual shoulder, bending down and reaching for the can Neil had probably tried hiding from him.

“Good?” Susan pushes. It draws a sigh from Billy, has him standing straight and slamming the fridge shut. It doesn’t make a sound, the rubber framing it muffling the bang it should’ve made. Pity.

“The usual,” he mutters. “Dad home?”

“Not yet,” Susan looks at her watch. “Still another two hours to go.”

Billy nods and makes to leave.

“Do you have work?” Susan asks in a hurry, like she’s trying to pump life into their conversation.

Billy doesn’t like it, preferred it when she ignored him and didn’t put effort into whatever fucked up relationship they have. “Yeah,” he answers. “At five.”

Susan nods, mindlessly stirring whatever she’s cooking. It’s gonna taste gross anyway. “I can talk to him while you’re out?” She offers, voice saccharine, motherly. Cringe-inducing. “He’ll listen to me.”

Billy laughs, a breathy mocking thing that has her smile faltering in a blink. “Yeah, no,” he shakes his head. “It seems that every time you _talk_, you make things fucking worse,” he says, voice as cruel as his words as he steps closer to her. “Maybe you should just look after yourself, look after Maxine, and keep your pretty mouth _shut,_” he makes a _shut it_ motion with his hand, feels a little victorious when she jumps in surprise, dainty lips pursed like she’s swallowing her pride. Beautiful.

On his way out, Billy stops at the door and turns to look at her. “And just a little advice, Susan,” he says, opening his can. “Make sure he knows Maxine isn’t his to slap around.”

He looks at her for a beat longer, huffs a small laugh from his nose when she parts her lips to say something before relenting, shoulders hunching and hands rubbing together in a clear sign of nerves. “Good talk,” he says, taking a step back.

“Billy,” she’s quick to recoup her voice. His name sounds like an apology on her tongue.

He ignores her.

**...**

The thing about Billy is that he loathes being told what to do.

During his upbringing, Neil had tried pushing him into baseball with insults, tried to drill into him the need to prove himself. He turned to basketball just to piss him off. And because he fucking could. He knew Neil had no say in it. After all, he could stop him from picking up swimming as a sport, but he couldn’t take a hold of Billy’s hands and force him to swing a fucking bat.

When he turned sixteen, Neil commented on his _femininity,_ called him a _fag_ because he’d let his hair grow past his jaw. Billy grew it into a mullet, relished every dirty look he got from his father knowing he was making his blood _boil._

Neil said Billy’s jeans were too tight, made him look like a homo. Billy bought _tighter_ ones.

It came to the point where he just didn’t care. Knew Neil will find any excuse to clobber him, so he thought _might as well do what I want to do._

But everyone who knows Billy knows how much he loves cars. He has more Hot Rod magazines in his drawer than he does any other magazine. Which isn’t really saying much considering he owns, like, three Penthouse magazines to seem like a normal hormonal teenage boy.

His job isn’t really that bad. Having a garage to himself for a couple of hours isn’t the worst thing that could happen to him. He spends most of it smoking and listening to music anyway.

But today really isn’t his day, so he can’t say he’s surprised when there’s a polite knock at the garage door a little past 8. “Closed!” He muffles out around his cigarette. There are a few hasty footfalls before his music comes to an abrupt stop, and Billy wants to _kill_ whoever has the _gall_ to disrupt his peace.

“F’fuck’s sake,” he mutters, casting the pliers aside and rolling his creeper out from beneath the car. He stands up and comes face to face with Harrington. And surprisingly, all his anger thaws into something less severe. An amused urge to tease and annoy. He pulls his cigarette out of his mouth and looks him over. “Of course it’s you.”

Steve looks surprised to see Billy here but doesn’t voice it. Instead, he frowns at the smoke between Billy’s fingers. “Were you seriously smoking under a car?” He asks. “That’s like, the most reckless thing someone can do.”

Billy grins, wild and cocky. “You know how I throw caution to the wind,” he shrugs. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re worried, _princess._”

Steve looks downright nonplussed by the pet name. His words fail him for a few moments before he swipes a hand in the air. “My car broke down.”

Billy’s brows rise at the change in subject. He steps closer, almost chest to chest with Steve. “And what _ever_ can I do about _that?_” he asks, voice dropping low.

Steve takes a step back, putting space between them. “You can take a look at it since you’re like, the _only mechanic_ around?” He asks, rhetorical. Billy allows himself a moment to appreciate that he’s still wearing Billy’s leather jacket.

He tuts his tongue and glances away like he’s saddened by Steve’s non-playful nature. “Where is it?” He asks after a second.

“Like, 10 minutes away from here.”

“Sorry, I don’t freelance, pretty boy,” Billy takes one last lungful of smoke before putting it out on the car he’s been working on.

“Is— Whose car is that?” Steve asks.

“Fuck knows,” Billy walks over to the boombox in that lazy way of his and starts his music again. He can vaguely hear Steve complaining in the background but picks to ignore him as he takes a bite of his pizza.

And when Steve turns the music off _again_, Billy turns to glare at him. “Got a death wish, Harrington?” he asks, chewing noisily. He puts the slice down and licks his fingers. “’Cause I have no problem-”

Steve stubbornly crosses his arms over his chest. “I have a _kid_ in that car. _Chief’s daughter,_” he says.

“Eh,” Billy shrugs a nonchalant shoulder. “Whatever happens to her won’t be worse than whatever you’re—”

“_Don’t_, finish that sentence,” Steve interrupts. “Just stop being an asshole and help me out. Jesus Christ, man.”

Billy sucks his teeth. “You’re really bratty for someone so desperate for help, Harrington,” he states, “sexy.”

Steve exhales heavily from his nose. “Are you going to help me or not?”

Billy rolls his eyes and gestures for the door. “You owe me one.”

**...**

“What the fuck’s goin’ on here, Harrington?” Billy asks.

El’s leaning against the BMW in her pyjamas, sleep mask pulled up into her messy hair. There’s blood dripping from her nose and her clothes are too thin for the stupid weather. Billy’s surprised by how quick he is to take his jacket off and throw it at her. “Wear it, fuckwit,” he says. “It’s fuckin’ hundred below zero degrees. Chief Hopper that much of a tightwad he didn’t even buy you a _jacket?_” He looks back at Steve before she can reply. “You kidnap the Chief’s daughter or something?”

“No,” Steve replies, walking over to the hood of the car. “She followed me.”

“She… followed you,” Billy echoes slowly, lifting a brow. He looks at her, assesses her with his eyes before looking back to Steve. “You expect me to believe a twelve year old–”

“Thirteen,” El interrupts sharply.

“–followed you. In her pyjamas?”

Steve doesn’t spare him a glance. “I asked for your help, Hargrove. Not an interrogation. Get your ass over here.”

Billy looks at El warily. She’s wiping her nose with the back of her hand, but otherwise doesn’t seem panicked or scared. She’s a weirdo. He wouldn’t put it past her to follow Steve around like a lost puppy.

Relenting, he walks over to where Steve is and shoves him out the way to take a look at the motor. “Got a light?”

“Yeah, um. No. Maybe? In the trunk,” he moves to check, but Billy presses the back of his hand to his chest pointedly.

“Easy there, pretty boy. I’ll get it. You need a change of tire anyway.”

There’s a single beat of silence before Steve blurts a, “No!”, then, quieter, “no. I’ll get it. I can get the extra tire too. I’m not _weak._”

He sounds panicked. And Billy’s intrigued and confused in equal measure. “What are you hidin’ back there, Harrington?” He asks, lips quirking into a smirk. “Only two things that would make you so funky. A body, or a freaky sex toy. Which one is it?” he eases back with slow, taunting steps.

Steve doesn’t dignify that with an answer and just opts for a simple ‘none’, mirroring Billy’s steps like he’s approaching some fucking wild animal.

Billy tilts his head, scowling thoughtfully as he places his hands on the trunk latch. He looks playful, drawing his movements out like he’s just trying to get a rise out of Steve.

Billy’s surprised by how fast Steve wedges himself between Billy and the car, even more so by the way he leans against it casually like he’s not the literal embodiment of panic right now. Billy blinks owlishly, his face shedding all traces of amusement. “Get out of my way,” he orders. Even his voice echoes the look on his face, solemn but hostile.

“Ok. You should stop poking your nose in my business, Hargrove,” Steve hisses. “I’ll just call chief Hopper. You can go. Get out of here.”

Billy licks his lips and inhales deeply through his nose as though it’s taking him every iota of self-control not to punch Steve in the face. “Nah,” he starts, casual, like he’s turning down an offer. “I don’t think so,” he grabs Steve by the lapels of his own jacket and drags him forward, then pushes him. Hard enough to have him stumbling a few steps away. Billy turns back to the trunk.

“Go away.”

His hands loosen and he turns his head to look at El, whose presence was long forgotten until now. He doesn’t look away from her as he pulls the decklid open. It shuts a second later with a slam. Makes Billy jump then compose himself by clearing his throat and straightening his back. When he tries again, it feels jammed. He tries with one hand, then two, then the whole car’s juddering with his attempt to get it open, his careless airs dissolving with each pull. And he hears something shift inside, make a sound halfway between a cry and a snarl. Makes him redouble his efforts. El doesn’t look away from him. Her nose’s bleeding again. A chill zips up Billy’s spine as he looks at her: At the bottomless darkness of her eyes as she draws her brows together, lips pressed into a tight line.

Focused. She looks focused.

She doesn’t look like the girl he hung out with last night. She doesn’t look like a fucking thirteen-year-old. She looks like a _psychopath_, and that thought alone has Billy stepping away.

The car starts up. Steve scrambles to his feet and climbs inside. “Get in,” he says to El.

El’s eyes linger on Billy as she rounds the car to get into the passenger seat. And Billy feels bare. Transparent. Like he’s made of glass and El’s looking right through him.

**...**

“Fucked up piece of shit!”

He’s under a car again, a shitty VW Beetle that needs a serious change of, well, _everything_. The motor is trash. There’s clearly something wrong with the throttle cable since the pedal won’t fucking budge. Billy wants to drive this bundle of crap to the quarry and right off the cliff.

The door creaks open, he hears it over the sound of Billy Idol’s ‘Rebel Yell’. “What? Car broke down again?” He asks out loud.

The answering silence has him lifting a brow as he places the wrench between his teeth. “Unless you’re here to give me back my jacket, get the fuck out,” he muffles out around it, tongue grazing the metal of the tool in his mouth. “I’m droppin’ by the station tomorrow.”

There’s a sound of squelching footsteps, like perhaps Harrington’s accidentally stepped in something and now the soles of his shoes are caked in mud. Then comes another sound, the drag of nails on— holy shit, Steve’s _vandalizing_ the car. That fucking piece of—

“Hey!” Billy tears the wrench out of his mouth to shout. He’s rolling his creeper out from under the hopeless Volkswagen. “You really do got a fucking death wish, you fuck–”

Not Harrington. Not Harrington. Not fucking Harrington.

It’s a dog. Or a- a dog— no, not—

Whatever the hell that thing is, it’s eating Billy’s pizza. And Billy can’t move.

He’s only known one type of fear in his life. The fear of his father. The fear of his fists and words that he stays still and _takes._ Because _it’ll be over soon,_ he always told himself. _Just stay very still._

He’s conditioned to stay still. That when glucose gets released into his bloodstream to get him to _run,_ he should clench his fists and _stay the fuck still._

He’s conditioned to use the _thump thump thump_ of his heart to count the seconds until his face is bruised black and blue and his father’s slamming the door shut on his way out of his room.

He can’t move. He wants to. Fuck, he wants to run, wants to hide. The _thing_ isn’t even looking at him, too busy snacking. But Billy’s body refuses to budge, inured to fear, to violence.

Billy doesn’t want to die.

His fingertips are tingling, oxygen flooding in and out of his lungs as fast as the thoughts swarming in his head per second. _Run. Hide. Run. Run. Run. Hide. Run. Run._

Billy’s feet twitch.

_That’s right. Run like you always do!_

Neil’s voice echoes in his head. _Unmans_ him. A sound leaves his throat. Stills the movements of the creature standing a few feet away from him.

It snarls. Billy’s blood freezes in his veins. Then it lifts its head and turns to face him, and Billy.

Billy runs. Fuelled with panic and adrenaline and pure fucking survival instinct.

It surges after him.

**...**

“No. No, I _know_ what I fucking saw! Get your fucking hands off me!”

“You been drinking?” the officer asks. “Might have to make you breathe into a breathalyser, kid. How many fingers am I holding up?” He lifts two fingers, tilting his head to look at Billy’s face, has him slapping his hand away and taking a step back.

“Where’s Hopper?” Billy demands. “I wanna speak to the chief. Right now. I’m not leaving until I have a word with him,” to prove his point, he plops down in a waiting chair and crosses his arms over his chest, lifting his chin pointedly. He’s scared, his leg’s bouncing and his jaw’s ticking and he doesn’t want to go home alone. There’s goo on the soles of his boots, where he’d stomped on the monster’s face until its screeching melted to a stop. He’s got a tear in his shirt, in his skin, adding to the shitload of scars he already has there. It’s bleeding and it stings like a motherfucker, but he isn’t leaving. Not until he tells Hopper everything. Because somewhere deep down, he _knows_ Hopper would believe him.

“Well you’re going to be doing a lot of waiting then,” Callahan or whatever the fuck his name badge reads says, “Hopper’s daughter dropped by a few hours ago with John Harrington’s son, said there’s some urgent thing going on.”

Billy’s head snaps up. “What kind of _urgent thing_?”

Callahan shrugs. “Got no idea, kid,” he tosses his keys in the air and catches them by the keyring. “Need a ride home?”

**...**

He gets back home a little past midnight. Neil and Susan are watching TV.

“Hi,” he says quietly. Neil ignores him. Susan offers a small smile.

“Hey,” she says. “There’s some food for you in the fridge.”

“No, there isn’t,” Neil says from where he’s sitting. His eyes don’t leave the television. “Go to your room, Billy.”

Billy nods. “Ok.” He has more important things on his mind than his punishment for nearly throttling his father.

“He was at work, honey,” Susan says with that soft voice of hers, the one she uses when she’s trying to placate him. “He couldn’t cut his shift short now could he?”

Neil sighs, rubs the bridge of his nose like he’s summoning some kindness of heart to allow Billy a meal. Billy interrupts before Susan once again makes shit worse. “Where’s Maxine?”

She turns her eyes on him. “She just came back from Jane’s,” she says.

Billy stares, bile rising in his throat. “What?” he rasps. “When did she come back?” The way he says it makes Neil straighten up. “She fine?” he doesn’t wait for their response, already making his way down the corridor to her room.

He slams her door open, has her jumping and throwing her walkie-talkie aside. “Ever heard of _knocking?_” she snaps. Billy kicks the door shut. “And what happened to _you_?” Max looks him over, starting with his filthy boots and ending with his messy hair that’s sticking up in all directions.

“I saw your friend today," he states.

“Lucas?” Max asks. She sounds panicked, like maybe the way he looks is a result of him _killing_ the kid or something.

“I said _friend_. Not _boyfriend,_” Billy starts pacing her room, hands interlaced at his nape. “The retard.”

“She’s _not—_ I hate you,” Max sighs.

“She was hanging around,” he pauses to turn a glare on her. Swallows. “With Steve.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah. _Steve_. Pretty face? Two brain cells?” Billy elaborates. “I’m gonna ask you this _once_, Maxine. What the _fuck_ is going on?”

“Oh, so _now_ you’re interested?” Max teases. She really doesn’t seem to understand the heaviness of the situation.

“Y’see. Something was _moving_ in the trunk of his car. He refused to let me see, and when I go back to the garage, this fucking— thing crawls in and eats my fucking pizza—"

“What?” Max’s voice drowns in Billy’s rant.

“And fucking runs after me and its face—” he stops to take a breath, pressing his palms together and biting at the tips of his middle fingers. He’s aware how _insane_ he sounds, but he knows what he fucking saw. "_Opens up_ wider than a local whore’s legs, and _no_! I’m not fucking _drunk_. And I _know_ that ugly piece of shit has something to do with the freak show you’re hangin’ out with all day. So either you tell me right now, or I fucking make you,” he grits his teeth and lifts a threatening finger. “Both ways, I’m finding out.”

He’s expecting her to laugh in his face and call him crazy. He’s at least expecting her to say ‘are you sure it wasn’t a dog?’. But that little cunt shrugs and says, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me, _cunt,_” he snaps back.

The door creaks open and Billy turns around to face Susan. She looks at him warily, then at Max. “Everything okay?” She asks, eyes flickering between the two of them.

Billy clears his throat and licks over his mouth before saying, “yeah, everything’s fine.” He combs his fingers through his hair, groaning when they snag on a few knots that he forcefully untangles. Susan hisses.

“I have a good detangling spray if you’d like,” she tries. Billy’s _tired_ of her trying.

“Everything’s _fine_, Susan,” he repeats, a little more coarse. She purses her lips and gives Max a look.

The second she’s clicking the door shut, Billy’s looking at Max. “So?”

Max heaves a breath. “Look, it’s really complicated—”

“If _you_ managed to _grasp_ the general idea, I’m sure I can,” Billy’s looking daggers at her. Daring her next words to be anything but what he asked for.

“Fine,” she says. Billy arches both brows when she doesn’t finish that line of thought. “Fine. There’s another dimension. The Upside Down or—”

“Oh fuckin’ _spare me,_” Billy rolls his eyes. “I don’t want the fantasy bull you and your cunt friends came up with.”

Max glares from where she’s sitting. “Then ask _Steve,_” she snarls. “I don’t have to tell you _anything_ and you can’t make me.”

Billy battles her glare with one of his own. Squints when she refuses to back down. Then he’s swinging her door open and barging across the hallway to his own room, slamming the door shut behind him.

He doesn’t get much sleep that night.

And when the clock strikes nine, his door bangs open, swings roughly on its hinges and hits the wall before falling shut again.

Billy doesn’t have the chance to register anything before he’s being hauled out of bed by the collar of his t-shirt and dragged up and forward. “You been bending the law again?” Neil hisses, low and dangerous between them.

“No, sir,” Billy slurs, still half asleep.

“Then explain to me why the chief of police is asking for you,” Neil pushes him back roughly, points up a threatening finger. “You’ve already got a record in California, Billy. If I find out— if I _find out_ you haven’t been complying—”

“Everything okay here?”

Neil clears his throat, lowering his finger and turning to where Hopper’s standing, eyes on Billy, who stands upright and straightens out his shirt. “Yeah, chief,” he answers, pinching his nose. “Pops says you asked for me?” He shifts the subject, not daring a glance in his father’s way.

“Nothing serious, kid,” Hopper answers. He’s giving Neil the stink eye. Billy has to hold back a smile. “Just wanna talk,” he steps back and motions out the door.

Billy grabs his packet of cigarettes from his makeshift bedside table and brushes past Hopper and straight down the hall and outside the house, Hopper’s on his heel a moment later. “Get in, kid.”

Billy doesn’t even question it, body moving on autopilot.

Steve’s inside, looking grumpy and like he hasn’t slept in days. “_Harrington_,” Billy greets smoothly. “Looks like you haven’t gotten much sleep. Were you up— what was the saying?” He pauses, humming in faux contemplation as Hopper starts the car and peels out of their driveway. “_Slaying your demons?_”

Steve’s jaw clenches, eyelids getting heavier with every blink. “Does your sense of humor ever die out, Hargrove?” He asks bitterly.

Billy props a toothpick between his lips. “Oh, don’t be such a grizzle guts, pretty boy,” he pushes his shoulder into Steve’s lightly. Steve pushes him away, hard enough to have Billy’s head knocking against the glass of his window.

Billy groans but decides to keep quiet.

After a good five minutes, he’s collected all memories from the night before— El, Steve, the ichor on the bottom of his favorite boots, the alcohol he drank to get some sleep because that monster was some real nightmare material. He groans again.

“Where we goin’?” He asks out loud, toothpick wagging between his teeth. His headache keeps getting worse and his voice isn’t helping.

Hopper ignores him.

“Harrington? Where we going?” Billy lolls his head to the side and smiles charmingly at Steve, who licks over his dry lips and keeps his eyes ahead. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you,” Billy lifts a hand and snaps his fingers in front of his face. The sound of Steve slapping his hand away rings in the silence of the backseat.

“Put a damn cork in it, Hargrove.”

“Hey, chief!” Billy kicks at the back of Hopper’s seat. “Menstruating _bitch_ alert back here. Can I sit shotgun?”

He’s once again ignored.

**...**

“I don’t know, Hop. Having a fat, balding, fifty-something year old man in power drive handsome, helpless, young me and passably decent Stevie here down to a cabin in the middle of the forest is givin’ me the screaming meemies.”

Hopper grabs Billy by the shoulders and ushers him towards the cabin. “Big-boned, Hargrove,” he says, sounds somewhat fond.

Billy snorts. “Sure, and lemme guess, that ain’t a beer belly, you’re just pregnant with twins.”

The only response he gets is Hopper’s thumbs digging into his back.

“And I’m _forty._”

“Same difference,” Billy mutters as he steps into the cabin.

The first thing he notices is Maxine, sitting between El and Bowl Cut. He lifts a brow.

“Yeah, okay, mom. Love you. Mwah. Yeah. I’ll get— what kind— the one that smells like someone ate a sardine and spat it out— okay. Love- Love y—” the kid with curly hair turns a glance over his shoulder and comes to an abrupt stop when his eyes fall on Billy. “Son of a _bitch_! No, not you, mom. Sorry. A dollar in the swear jar, okay. Love you, bye.”

He hangs up and turns around. “What’s that asshole doing here?” He asks.

“For someone with a lisp, you sure do love words with S’s,” Billy grins. “Try _douchebag_.”

“Screw you,” Dustin snaps.

“There you go with the S words again,” Billy waves a hand and sits down on the armrest closest to El. “_Fuck you_ is a better and more effective equivalent.”

Steve sits down next to Lucas and rests his head back, eyes falling shut. Billy doesn’t dare look at either of them.

“No one answered my question,” Dustin says. “What is he doing here?”

“What are _you_ doing here?” Billy bites back. “Shouldn’t you shitbirds be at school?”

“Shouldn’t _you_ be at school?” Max asks, the same time Mike says, “Day off.”

“What is he doing here?” Dustin demands for the third time. He points an accusatory finger at him, looking at Hopper. “He almost ran us over!” He shouts. Hopper looks at Billy.

“Sure I did,” Billy murmurs twirling his key-ring around his finger.

“You did,” Max inputs, shrugging.

“I wouldn’t run kids over,” Billy states. Too serious to sound insincere. “Y’all really think I’d not only sentence myself to fuck knows how many years in jail, but also get blood on my girl?”

“And here I thought you were being decent for once,” Max grouses under her breath as Billy rants on.

“Y’know how much she _costs me?_ There’s the gas,” he lifts his thumb, there’s the _paint,_" he lifts his forefinger, “there’s the insurance, the _tires,_ and don’t even get me started on the—”

“Shut _up,_” Steve groans.

El giggles. Has everyone looking at her and Billy ruffling her hair. “You like that, huh?”

“El, he’s the _enemy,_” Dustin says. “Don’t fraternize with the enemy.”

“F-Fra—ternize,” El repeats. Slowly, committing the word to memory before looking up at Billy questioningly.

“Be friends with someone you shouldn’t be friends with,” Billy defines for her.

El smiles.

“What is he _doing here?_” Dustin cries out.

“He’s okay!” Steve comes out with. “Christ, just shut _up_ already.”

A flash of hurt crosses Dustin’s face and Billy feels real fucking mature when he sticks his tongue out at him.

“Just— stop shouting,” Steve sits up and drops his face in his hands.

“Not to be that guy,” Billy says. “But what _am_ I doing here?”

Hopper comes back into the room. “Max told us about your little adventure last night.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Billy rebuts. “I’m not interested in your little geek club, chief. No offense.”

Hopper blinks at him. “I don’t care what you’re interested in, kid. No offense.” he says, chugging at his can. “Your sister’s involved and as her brother—”

“Stepbrother,” Billy interrupts.

“Does it _fucking matter?_” Max yells. “What is he _doing here?_”

Billy sighs and smacks his thighs as he stands up. “Y’all don’t want me here as much as I don’t wanna be here. What a fucking compromise,” he makes to leave but Hopper sidesteps and blocks the door.

“You’re in this whether you like it or not, Hargrove. People are in danger.”

Billy’s brows draw together and he shakes his head like, _so what?_ “And I’m supposed to care, why exactly?” He asks. Ignores the murmured protests about how he’s an _asshole_ and _why is he here_ from behind him. “Consider it population control, Hop,” he smiles, patting Hopper twice on the shoulder. “Good chat.”

It takes Hopper a minute to realize Billy wasn’t twisting _his_ keys around his finger. And he’s a second too late because when he rushes to the window and looks out, Billy’s already revving his engine and driving away, whooping like the hungover maniac he is.

“Son of a _bitch!_”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit. k. funny story. i had chapter 11's draft saved on here and on my attempt to delete it, i ended up deleting a chapter i already posted and i couldn't find the chapter anywhere to repost it. HOWEVER, i did find half of it. and i was VERY unsatisfied with how rushed my last ending was so i ended up deleting it completely and adding an extra 1.5k words woop. im happier with this version. sorry for the mess that is i.
> 
> ___

Mrs. Wheeler is a sight for sore eyes. That woman is goddamned _gorgeous_. In a fuck n’ run kinda way. Because last time Billy was leaning against her kitchen counter, she was complaining about shit he could care less about. Bitch isn’t a good mother, wife, nor gossiper. Billy thinks maybe she’s only handy between the sheets.

“Oh, and Jonathan was a complete darling last week,” she’s saying as she stirs the coffee. Billy briefly wonders if she’s pursuing Byers as well. It’s a thought he dismisses as soon as he considers, because the mere idea of her comparing Johnny-Boy to _him_ empties the air out of his amour propre. “He switched the lights up for me and helped prepare dinner.”

Billy doesn’t mean to get jealous. He’s not the jealous type, especially not over some cougar who seems as dry as fucking dust. “Did he now?” he says, bitter. His bitterness seems to _fuel_ her. Has her laughing softly as she hands him a mug. His eyes don’t leave her when he lifts it to his lips.

They do leave her when Mike comes barreling in. “Hi, mom- can I go to-” he skids to a stop when his gaze falls on Billy. “What is _he_ doing here?”

“Michael!” Karen chides, brows rising. “What did we say about respecting guests?”

Billy chuckles quietly. “It’s no problem, Karen. Really,” he says her name while looking at Mike, like he’s _teasing_ him with the idea that he and his mother are on a first name basis. Mike glares. Billy smilesfurtively.

“Can I go hang out at Will’s?” Mike finally says, much quieter as he looks to his mom for permission.

“Mike, you _know_ I’m not happy with you wandering around town. Your teachers aren’t very happy either,” she’s drumming her nails against the counter as Billy watches the exchange. Given Mike’s confused frown, she’s never this strict and from that, Billy knows she’s just trying to impress. It makes him lick his lips and glance away.

“Y’know, I could give him a drive if you’d like,” he says, a second before taking a long swallow of the coffee. It’s sweet, tastes like fucking royalty. When he puts the mug down, he pushes himself off the counter and closes the space between him and her to lean down into her ear. “Let kids be kids, yeah?”

Karen clears her throat, glancing away and taking a small step back with a hand rubbing over her throat. She’s blushing under her makeup, licking at her lipstick until it’s fading on her mouth. “Okay,” she says, voice raspier, _affected_. Billy glances over his shoulder at Mike, who’s staring agape between his parent and Billy. Like he’s _just_ figuring shit out. “Mike, go get your jacket, it’s chilly outside.”

That makes Billy withdraw, offering her a smile as he downs what’s left of his coffee. “Thank you for havin’ me, Mrs. Wheeler.”

“I’d have you anytime—” Karen stares, mortified. “I mean. I’d have you here. In the house. For _coffee_. I don’t,” she’s shaking her head, makes Billy tilt his own without even offering to help her through an explanation. Then he laughs, eye-crinkling and mirthful. It stops her from rambling further. “All I’m saying,” she lifts both hands. “Is you’re welcome here anytime.”

Billy nods. “Yes, ma’am.”

...

“Are you _screwing_ my mom?!”

Billy stays silent. Just to add fuel to the fire.

“You piece of _shit_!” Mike shouts. “You garbage can! You disgusting pervert! I’m telling Max!”

Billy takes a drag on his cigarette and hangs his arm out the window. “I’m terrified, _Michael_. Fuckin’ shakin’ in my boots right now,” he says, eyes not leaving the road. It’s fun distraction, riling him up. Mike slumps back in his seat, kicks at the glovebox and has Billy shouting ‘Hey! Hey! Watch your fuckin’ feet, Wheeler!’

Mike kicks it one last time for good measure. “I wish the demodog ate you.”

Billy hides his smile around the filter of his cig, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “_Demodog_? That short for Demogorgon? You really named those things after a fucking prince of hell?”

Mike stares at him. At least Billy thinks he’s staring at him. “D&D villain. You _like_ _mythology_?”

Billy frowns. “Everyone likes mythology.”

“Steve doesn’t,” Mike counters. “He said it’s like history but fictional. He’s shit at history.”

Billy snorts. “Steve doesn’t count,” he says. “That idiot has the attention span of a gnat.”

There’s a whole minute of blissful silence before Mike opens his mouth again. “Are you really sleeping with my mom?” he asks. He sounds disheartened. Music to Billy’s ears.

“Nope. It’s a work in progress,” he answers. “You and your cunt sister keep getting in the way.”

Mike’s frothing at the mouth, Billy can sense it. Basks in it. He hates kids, especially those who think they have _authority_. “I’m telling.”

“Who? Max?” Billy asks amusedly.

“Hopper.”

“Oh?” Billy laughs. “Jim Hopper? What’s he gonna do? Handcuff a minor for sleeping with your mom?”

Mike punches him. Tries to at least.

...

“How was work?” 

Susan goes silent for a second, eyes flickering to Billy before she speaks up. “Max. Jane called and asked for you while you were in the shower.”

Billy hates that he _appreciates_ the time she’s buying until he comes up with a lie to tell his dad. 

He was fired from his job at the garage after a very angry, very posh old fuck barged in demanding he speaks to his manager. He’d shouted vehemently while pointing at the three crevices in his car, and when Billy told him _a_ _monsterhad_ _done_ _it_, his boss just… pushed him in the direction of the door and told him not to come back.

“I know, we talked,” Max answers around her mouthful of food. 

Neil’s looking at Billy from across the table. _Glaring_. He knows. Billy’s sure he knows. 

“I got fired,” he says. 

Susan purses her lips, looking between her husband and stepson. 

“So what were you doing the whole day?” Neil asks, waving a fork as he chews noisily. “Would it be _ambitious_ of me to assume you were looking for a job?”

Billy tongues the inside of his cheek. “Was helpin’ Mrs. Wheeler out. Her TV was acting up so I offered.”

Neil’s glare alleviates. “Mrs. Wheeler?” He asks. 

“Yeah. Mike’s mom,” Max puts in. “The one who drove me home last week.”

Neil looks at her, then back at Billy. And, Billy doesn’t _know_ what he’s expecting, but for his father to smirk before laughing, like it’s some sort of inside joke? Yeah, that hadn’t even crossed his mind. Then again, Billy remembers being fourteen and coming home with a lip print on his cheek from where his buddy’s mom had kissed him. Neil’d clapped him on the shoulder and looked prouder than he did when Billy came home with a GPA of ninety-seven percent. 

Billy’s not sure if he should laugh along. 

Neil gets up, walks past him on his way to the sink and claps him on the shoulder the same way he had a couple of years ago, treads off lazily with a laughed out _atta_ _boy_ and a shake of his head.

...

“Can I _ever _catch a fuckin’ break?”

Steve looks up and eyes him through the mirror. “Sorry on behalf of my bladder?” he asks, slow, like he’s indulging Billy’s pettiness.  
  
Billy huffs and strolls in to stop in front of the sink next to Steve’s. “I feel like a wanted man,” he mutters. “It’s one thing havin’ you and the little shits on my case. A whole different thing having a bunch of James fuckin’ Bonds hounding me.”  
  
Steve winces, like he can relate. “Yeah. It’s just a matter of time before you’re forced to sign confidentiality papers and all that crap,” he mutters.  
  
Billy wraps his limp curl around his forefinger, trying to make it bouncy again.  
  
“Didn’t have time for the curlers?” Steve teases, squeezing soap into the palm of his hand.  
  
He doesn’t think Billy’s going to dignify his question, but then Billy looks at him through the mirror. Steve feels butterflies. No, _one _butterfly. One _very, very _drunk butterfly. “That was a joke,” he explains. Billy rolls his eyes and continues to spring his curl to life.

“What happens if I don’t sign the papers?” Billy asks conversationally. Like he wants to draw their little chance encounter out.  
  
“They kill you,” Steve answers with a shrug. Clicks his tongue and slices his hand through the air in a simulation of decapitation. He watches Billy for the shift in expression. Billy doesn’t disappoint. He tenses, eyes locking on the reflection of Steve’s. Steve’s lips quiver with his itch to laugh.  
  
“You fuckin’ with me, Harrington? You think you’re funny? Gotta fucking death wish?”  
  
“I mean, _you’re _the one who’s got a _fucking death wish _if you don’t wanna sign those papers,” Steve supplies casually. He twirls around and leans his weight back on the sink, arms folding over his chest.  
  
Billy wets his lips. “That what happened to Barbara or whatever that chick was called?” he asks.  
  
Hearing her name has the blood draining from Steve’s face. He stands upright and clears his throat. He doesn’t bother giving an excuse. Rushes for the door and leaves before Billy has the chance to ask him where he’s going.

…

“Tell me about Barbara Holland,” Billy says between mouthfuls of sloppy school food.  
  
Tommy waves his fork, smacking his lips around a mouthful of mashed potato. “Nothing to say, man,” he replies. “She’s definitely a dyke with a boner for the Princess.”  
  
_“Was,” _Carol corrects. Then she laughs. Like Barb’s death happened for her entertainment or something. She looks at Billy and shrugs a shoulder. “She went lost a couple of days after Freak Byers’ little bro did. Never showed up.”  
  
“No one looked for her?” Billy questions, brow arched. He knew Hawkins High’s hicks grovelled at the feet of the champagne socialists, but he didn’t think they were _insensitive.  
  
_“Come on, man, no one knew who she was,” Tommy pushes his shoulder into Billy’s playfully. “Why do you care anyway? She’s dead.”  
  
Billy tongues the inside of his cheek and looks around until his eyes catch on Wheeler and Byers. He gets up, pointedly ignoring Tommy’s calls, and walks over to them. He doesn’t ask to sit, just slides in opposite them and leans forward. “How’s your queer brother, Johnny-Boy?”  
  
“Jesus, what’s your problem?” Nancy hisses. The same time Jonathan says, “Fine.”  
  
Billy deliberately avoids _glancing _in Wheeler’s direction as he says, “Not talking to you, _princess,” _then, at Jonathan, “You know Barbara? Red hair, glasses, had a thing for your girl? Prolly your only competition before she kicked the bucket?”  
  
“Don’t speak about her like that,” Nancy chimes in.  
  
Billy breathes in through his nose and turns to look her dead in the eye. “You braindead? _What _part of _I’m not talking to you_ are your frilly little brain cells finding difficulty with?”

Nancy presses her lips together and juts her chin, as though hearing his words alone is dehumanizing.  
  
Jonathan clears his throat. “Nancy’s really smart,” he defends weakly.  
  
“Yeah, yeah. She’s smart and pretty and has the most beautiful eyes and biggest bust. What happened to Barb?”  
  
Jonathan looks at Nancy apologetically. Billy could _snore _right now. They’re only teens and they’re already acting like a middle-aged abstinent couple. “I don’t know,” Jonathan says. Would sound honest if Billy was a tad more gullible.  
  
“What happened to your brother?”  
  
“He was kidnapped–”  
  
“Nah, don’t give me that shit,” Billy waves a hand. “I know about the. Everything. Just give me the juicy details.”  
  
Jonathan shrugs. “He was kidnapped.”  
  
“Does _everyone _have a death wish today?” Billy asks on a soft sigh. “You have to the count of three before I rip your tongue out and give you a _real_ reason not to answer, Byers.”  
  
Jonathan’s face twists. He looks like he has a lot of pent up rage. “Look, man. I don’t _know _anything.”  
  
“One,” Billy articulates, finishes with a disgusting wag of his tongue.  
  
He’s gotta hand it to him, Jonathan doesn’t look half as nervous as Nancy. Which is. A lot. Especially when he remembers that he and Johnny-boy have ‘beating Steve up’ in common. “Two.”  
  
Jonathan glares.

“Three.”  
“She died!”  
  
Billy’s eyes linger on Jonathan a beat longer before they go to Nancy. He smiles, flutters his eyelashes and leans closer all innocent and charming. “Go on.”  
  
“You don’t have to,” Jonathan says from beside her. Billy rolls his eyes at the ceiling.  
  
“We were with– friends,” Nancy starts.  
  
“_We?_” Billy echoes. Then laughs. “Ohh. That’s the time Johnny here was practicin’ his photography, huh?”  
  
Nancy purses her lips. “And Barb told me– she didn’t tell me she’ll wait.”  
  
"Once upon a time in a land far, far away..bla bla bla" Billy rolls his eyes again. Because the bitch’s getting _emotional _and he doesn’t have time for that. “Just cut to the chase, Wheeler.”  
  
“I went upstairs to change.”  
  
“And spare me the niceties, sweetheart.”  
  
“Do you have _any _sympathy at all?” Jonathan snaps. He holds Nancy’s hand, makes her smile. Makes Billy smile through gritted teeth.  
  
“She told me she’s going home,” Nancy explains. “And I thought she _did. _That’s why I didn’t go down after–… They found her body when they found Will.”  
  
Billy blinks. “Wait a minute. You were at _Harrington’s?”_  
  
Nancy looks at him, frown lines between the furrow of her brows. She nods. “Yeah.”  
  
Steve’s dead garden suddenly makes sense to him.  
  
“So you let your friend die for some Harrington cock?” Billy’s brows rise. He ducks his head the same time she does, just to see how much it hurts her. “Guess it’s true what they say. Like mother like daughter, huh?_”  
  
_He stands up and rounds the table to clap Jonathan on the shoulder. “Good talk, man,” he takes a step, leans down into Nancy’s ear because he’s a _dick _like that. Whispers, “Hope it was worth it, baby.” He knows he’s jabbing at the memory with a twist of the toe of his boot. Knows that she feels it like salt to a wound. _Fucking counts on it._

…

He goes knocking at Steve’s door that night. Doesn’t let him finish his _what the hell are you doing here, man? _and just– pushes past him. It’s hot inside. Just like the time Billy woke up in Steve’s bed. “Come on in,” Steve mutters to no one before shutting the door.  
  
“Take your clothes off,” Billy says.  
  
Steve’s expression’s _priceless. _“Um. No thanks.”  
  
Billy walks further into the house. Steve close behind. He stops at the patio door and slides it open. “It’s hot in here. How about a swim to cool off?”  
  
Steve’s jaw sets. He takes a step back. “Fuck off, man. Not up for your mind games right now.”  
  
Billy chucks his jacket off. “Come on, Harrington. Humor me.”  
  
Steve takes a breath and looks away. Like he’s contemplating it. Then he looks back at Billy. Finds a derisive smirk on his lips, harsh around the edges, sinking into Steve’s pride. So, Steve sucks it up and pulls his grey sweater off. He storms to the patio, shoving the sweater extra hard into Billy’s chest before stepping out.  
  
Billy watches him take the first breath. Then he watches him hesitate. Sees his toes curl against the ground. Billy shifts in discomfort. Feels like the garden’s _sucking _Steve’s soul out of him. Steve’s wearing red sweatpants. His lips are a matching red, his skin a healthy porcelain and his eyes a warm brown. He’s _vibrant. _But then he starts walking to the dirty pool. And he’s losing color with every step.  
  
He stops at the edge of the pool. “Don’t be shy,” Billy says.  
  
Steve flinches. Like he’d forgotten Billy’s there altogether. He dips his foot inside. Billy curses under his breath. “Ok. Ok. Jesus. Get back inside.”

…

“She died out there,” Steve states out of nowhere. “Barb. If she hadn’t stayed. If Nancy’d gone with her. She’d still be alive.”  
  
Billy drags on his cigarette with a nod. “Figured,” he says, clipped, and exhales a cloud of smoke. “S’that around the time you became such a loser?”  
  
Steve reaches a hand across the table, fingers parted for the cigarette. Billy hands it to him indignantly. “I guess. Realized there’s more to life than drinks and sex.”  
  
There’s a moment of silence on Billy’s half before he leans back, making the chair creak. His fingers trace the illegible words engraved into the wooden table, seared through paper with an angry hand and a sharp pen. “Also why you hang out with the shits?”  
  
Steve blows out a smoke ring. It’s casual. A small hint of what he was before Barb. Billy’s lips lift at one corner. “Partly,” Steve answers. Waits for curiosity to spark in Billy’s eyes before he goes on. “I mean, Mike’s mom’s too busy wanting to get on her knees for _you _instead of salvaging what’s left of her marriage. Mrs. Henderson worried about Tews getting stuck in the chimney more than she did about Dustin breaking his thumb that one time,” he huffs a small laugh. “And Susan? No offense but Susan…” he trails off, shaking his head, like he can’t begin to fathom how bad a mother Susan is.  
  
“None taken. Bitch’s a dead loss of a mom,” their hands brush when he takes back what little remains of his cigarette.  
  
“And yeah. I know what it’s like to have parents but not… _have _parents.”  
  
Billy deflates. Can _physically _feel his face drop before he pieces his nonchalance back together and nods once. Like he gets it but doesn’t _get it._ “Ever the honorable, Harrington.”  
  
Steve’s smile’s a far cry from genuine. “Yeah, well,” he doesn’t finish that sentence. Just shrugs like, _it is what it is.  
  
_The silence following is tense, thickening the air around them until Billy huffs and sits up, puts the cigarette out in the N of the _N + S_ written on the table in fancy writing. “It’s getting late,” he says. It sounds like he’s meaning to leave, an intro to an exit. But then he’s bending down and carrying Steve’s ugly cat. Unceremonious and somewhat clumsy. From the corner of his eye, he sees Steve’s hands twitch then falter. It makes Billy grin. “Max tell you what I did back in Cali, huh?”  
  
Steve purses his lips. “Burning her cat? Yeah.”  
  
Billy rolls his eyes. “You’re actin’ like _cremation _isn’t a thing. I bet that piece of shit vase over there has your gran’s ashes in it.”  
  
“My grandma’s very much _alive, thank you very much,” _Steve retorts.  
  
Steve’s cat doesn’t like Billy. It tries to get off his lap but he only presses it down, giving it no choice but to comply and let its legs collapse beneath its forced weight. “My condolences.”  
  
Billy doesn’t have much experience with cats outside burning their bodies. He doesn’t know that they like being tickled beneath the chin and between the eyes and sometimes behind their ears. He starts massaging the tip of the cat’s ear, entirely aware of Steve’s cautious gaze on him, watching his every move.  
  
“What are you doing here, Billy?” he asks ad lib. Going by his tone, the question’s been boiling to the tip of his tongue for a while now. “Like. Don’t get me wrong, man. But we’re not all buddy-buddy for you to be here and I have shit to do.”  
  
Billy doesn’t feel _embarrassment. _Maybe he will in the far future. Hopefully never. But he still feels a weight in his gut, something he can’t quite place. His back and the nape of his neck suddenly feel soaked with heat. He leans back in his seat, balances the chair on its rear legs. “Wanted to know Barbara’s story unfiltered,” he states. Shrugs and sucks his teeth. “Turned out to be boring from all sources.”  
  
Steve looks at him. “Yeah well. You got your answer.”  
  
Billy knows a backhanded farewell when he hears one. And he _has _outstayed his welcome. He pushes the cat off his lap, has it grumbling a complaint before walking away, tail held high.  
  
Billy stands up. Wants to laugh when Steve follows suit, like the polite fuck he is.  
  
The first gust of cold air has him suppressing a shudder that turns to a chill zipping up his spine. Fuck Hawkins’ weather.  
  
He feels Steve’s presence behind him. Feels his eyes on him all the way to his car.  
  
He doesn’t let out the breath he’s been holding until the Harrington Residence is in his rear view.

…

Neil gets a raise the following week. His hissy fits get appreciably less. In fact, Wednesday evening, while they’re dining together like a _sane, put-together family, _he slumps back in his chair, one hand on his stomach, while he fingers the food out of his teeth like the disgusting man he is, and says, “Richard and his wife are in town. We’re going to eat out tomorrow night,” a heavy pause, then, _“_at the new restaurant the town’s been making a fuss about, so _dress nicely.”_  
  
Max’s first instinct is to look at Billy. Billy’s ashamed to say that his first instinct, too, is to look her way. They lock eyes. Blue to blue. _Please no _to _please no. _Billy’s lip curls when Max decides to voice her protest. She shuts up.  
  
Susan reaches over and strokes a strand of hair away from Max’s face and tucks it behind her ear. “We’ll find something pretty for you,” she coos.  
  
And.  
  
Well, Susan’s definition of _pretty _is Billy’s definition of _social suicide.  
  
_Max’s too, given the fixed scowl on her face as she shoulders past him to get into the passenger’s seat, her black and red polka dot dress getting stuck in the door when she shuts it. She looks fucking 5.  
  
Billy didn’t try too hard. Tucked a white shirt into black jeans, took his dangly earring out to replace it with a diamond stud, and topped it all off with the peacoat Susan bought him on his birthday last year. Back then, when she’d told him to _try it on, _he’d responded with _fuck off _and _you’re not my fucking mom. _Billy doesn’t recall her telling Neil. He would’ve ended up with a bruise that’d lasted at least a week to serve as a reminder of his fuckup.  
  
This time, she gives him a small smile when she sees that he’s wearing it. Billy gets all prickly, responds to her sugary smile with a snarled out, _‘Don’t fuckin’ give me that. Ugly shit is what he considers ‘nice’, got it?’  
  
_He expects her to get all _womanly _about it, go cry to Neil or something. A part of him _wants her to. _Wants her to prove to be the _bitch _she is. Because _she’s not his mom. _Instead, Susan lifts her hands in defense, smile gaining a little width.  
  
Billy gathers phlegm in his mouth and spits a ball a stone’s throw away from her heels.  
  
Her smile vanishes and Billy feels fucking _wonderful.  
  
_He rounds his Camaro. Glares at her as he climbs in. “Hide your walkie better, dumb bitch,” he says to Max, reaching into his glovebox to pull out his packet of cigs. “Stop staring, you bug-eyed fuck.”  
  
He knows she’s looking at the handprint on his cheek. The one Neil _good-naturedly_ planted there. _‘don’t disappoint me.’, ‘got it, sir’, _cheek-squeeze, 'man-up' slap.  
  
Max pulls the walkie talkie out of the inside of her jacket and lifts the skirt of her dress up to stick it in her sock while Billy pulls his hair back into a half-bun.  
  
Billy lurches the car to a start. “Seatbelt, Maxine. How many times do I have to tell you before you get it through your thick skull?”

…

Max keeps excusing herself to talk to her freak friends and Billy’s this close to dragging her back to the table by her braided buns.  
  
“William, is it?” Richard asks.  
  
He's a gray-haired man with thick brows and a moustache worse than Neil’s. His wife, _Debra, _is nicer. Uglier, but nicer. She keeps telling him how much he reminds her of her son. And it’s. Well. The idea of looking like a mix of these two’s genes deflates his ego but he gets the sentiment.  
  
“Yes, sir,” Billy nods, smiling charmingly. “I prefer Billy.”  
  
“Oh, Timothy prefers Tim or _Timmy,” _Debra says, eyes sparkling happily. She reaches over and squeezes Billy’s chin between bony fingers. “Oh, look at _you. _So handsome and _polite. _Your parents raised you well.”  
  
Billy’s forced smile feels like a fucking millstone on his face suddenly. Susan starts to say something, but Neil speaks over her. “Yes, we’re very proud of him.”  
  
Billy’s jaw clenches so tight, he thinks his molars are about to break.  
  
Susan notices. Clears her throat and starts probing into Timothy’s life. Billy isn’t really listening. He abruptly stands up, making the chair’s legs scratch across the floor, startling the couple and Susan. “‘Scuse me,” he utters.  
  
He goes in the direction Max’s coming back from, shoulders past her and into the bathroom. He wishes she wouldn’t follow him, but he knows her well enough. Knows his hopes are in vain.  
  
“Billy, hey.”_  
  
_“This is the guys’ bathroom,” Billy responds, leaning his weight on the basin. He knows that that too is futile.  
  
“So?” she quips. “Listen–”  
  
“I hate rich people,” Billy utters. “Hate our fucktard parents. Y’know, if they were on fire and I had a bottle of water–”  
  
“You’d water the cactuses. Yeah, I know the drill. Can we save your meltdown for later?”  
  
Billy lifts his head to glare at her through the mirror.  
  
“Aah, scary. Again. Maybe later? I need you to drive me to El’s.”  
  
Billy’s glare hardens.  
  
“It’ll take like, ten minutes tops. They wouldn’t even realize you’re gone. I’ll say I ran away, okay? I just really need to get there.”  
  
“Mmm, no.”  
  
Max stomps her foot petulantly, looking every inch the 5-year-old she’s dressed up as. “Stop being so _difficult. _I know you like being here just as much as I do. Please?”  
  
Neil’s been in a good mood. Whatever shit he’s gonna be greeted with once he’s home won’t be good, but it won’t be _that _bad either. Maybe he’ll be thrown out for a night to appreciate what he has. Followed by a long ass lecture about familial duties, speckled with an ear-twist here and a hair-pull there. Still better than spending the evening acting like the harmonious family they’re pretending to be.  
  
“Fine,” he says. “But you take the blame for both of us. No way in fuck am I comin’ back here.”

…

“Y’know. I could be out with some bitch right now,” Billy’s saying, waving the hand that isn’t wrapped around the steering wheel in the air conversationally. “I could be with _Stacy _or _Cynthia. _Dammit, Cynthia has the tightest ass. Man, I even heard Karen’s havin’ a real stumblin’ block tryna get mounted–”  
  
_“Gross,” _Max interrupts. “Who told you that?”  
  
Billy smirks, throwing her a sideways glance. “She did.”  
  
“Floozy,” Max mutters. Sounds like she’s aiming it more at Billy than Karen Wheeler.  
  
“Can you _blame _her?” Billy defends, giving himself a nice ego-stroke in the process. “Husband’s a fucking–”  
  
“Watch out!”  
  
Billy slams on the brakes on reflex, plunging the car to a stop. Max’s head hits the dashboard. The bumper barely brushes the _thing _in the middle of the street, seemingly on its way into the woods  
  
“Holy shit,” Max breathes when it turns its head, the corolla of its face rippling. “Billy. Run it over.”  
  
“I _just _gave the car a paintjob, Maxine.”  
  
The demodog snarls, its face unfurling and exposing the teeth inside.  
  
“Billy! Run it over! Go, go!”  
  
“Don’t _rush _me!”  
  
He runs it over anyway. Keeps running it over until its screeches turn to whimpers then to silence.  
  
Billy pulls over, reaching for his door handle the same time Max reaches for hers. “Stay the fuck put, Max.”  
  
“What? No. I wanna see what it looks like up close.”  
  
Billy grabs her upper arm and leans in close. “I said,” he whispers through gritted teeth. “Stay. Put.”  
  
Max looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights, eyes round and jaw clenched like she’d forgotten the Billy she’s grown up with or something. Billy’s rougher when he lets go. “I’m hidin’ that thing then we’re goin’ home. You can see your freak friend tomorrow.” He climbs out and slams the door shut. 

…  
  


The next day, after they _both _get told off by Neil (Max says she ran off and Billy followed after her and by the time he found her and took her back to the restaurant, they were gone), they end up at Hopper’s cabin.  
  
“You’re sure it was coming here?”  
  
“Unless there’s some other weird fuck livin’ out in the middle of the woods?” Billy leans back against the armrest of the couch El’s sitting on.  
  
_“Language,” _Hopper scolds. “And you kids killed it?” he looks between Billy and Max like Max did _anything _besides cause the whole thing.  
  
“No, we offered it a cig and left it back at Benny’s Burgers,” Billy points a thumb over his shoulder. “Should I’ve given it a coin for the payphone?”  
  
“Drop the sarcasm,” Hopper says, even with El giggling and Joyce hiding a smile behind her hand. Everyone else doesn’t seem to find it funny.  
  
Hopper pinches the bridge of his nose, clearly stressed. “Joyce and I will go check out the lab. See if we’ll find anything there.”  
  
“You allowed in?”  
  
“I’m the chief of police,” Hopper states, the same time Steve says, “It’s empty.”  
  
“Then why look there?” Max questions.  
  
“El said that’s where they’re coming from,” Will replies from where he’s sitting on the floor. “My nightmares are just dreams, but El,” he shrugs, like that’s enough explanation.  
  
Billy lifts a brow.  
  
“Will’s nightmares are a result of his PTSD,” Joyce says, stroking his ugly bowl cut gently.  
  
“El has a connection with the Upside Down,” Lucas adds. “So maybe her nightmares are more than that.”  
  
Billy opens his mouth, wanting to call bullshit because he’s really _not _in the mood for this paranormal crap. Are they seriously insinuating the girl’s _psychic?_ “Alright,” he slaps his thighs and brings himself to his feet. “My work here’s done. When y’all are done with… all this crap,” he waves a hand in circles. “Call me so I can pick up Max.”  
  
He makes it three steps before Hopper grabs him by his bun. “Hey, _hey, _watch the hair,” Billy wraps a hand around his wrist and buries his nails inside hard enough to have Hopper’s grip loosening.  
  
“Kid’s tough,” he hisses.  
  
“Yeah, trust me. I _know,” _Steve mumbles.  
  
“Will and Sinclair, you two go to school,” Hopper orders, rubbing his thumb over the crescent indents in his wrist. They follow the order almost immediately, grab their bags and leave with quiet _we’ll wait in the car_. “Your folks okay with El spending the day?” Hopper says to Max.  
  
“Um. Sure,” Max looks at El as she says it, unsure. Because apparently, those two are still on shaky grounds. El nods at her.  
  
“And you two,” Hopper points between Billy and Steve. “You two go to Murray Bauman. That man probably knows something. Has eyes and ears everywhere.”  
  
Billy sniggers. “Man, I don’t know who appointed you overseer, but I’m not interested.”  
  
_“Hargrove,” _Hopper utters, slow and rough. “Cooperate with me, kid.”  
  
Billy scowls. Huffs. Shakes his head like _whatever._  
  
“Can’t I go with Nancy?” Steve asks. “Or Jonathan? Or like, _anyone else?”  
  
_“This isn’t a _science project,” _Hopper comes out with. “You’re adults. Behave like it.”  
  
There’s a beat of silent glare-battling before Steve stomps a foot, all juvenile pettiness. “Fine. But _I’m _driving.”_  
  
_He shoulders past Billy on his way out and Billy looks at Hopper. “Hope you know you owe me.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Why couldn’t we just take your car, man? Would’ve saved us the walk.”  
  
“You think I’d let you anywhere near my car, Harrington?” Billy asks. He doesn’t say he doesn’t want Steve anywhere in Neil’s _vicinity. _Doesn’t want to be seen with _any _boy within Neil’s eyeshot.  
  
“Oh, _shit. _My mom’s home.”  
  
Billy looks up, finds a car other than Steve’s Beemer pulling to a stop down the street. His brows rise, grin stretching around his cigarette. “Yeah? Can I say hi?”  
  
“Ha,” Steve laughs. “Nope, not a chance.”  
  
“Oh, come on,” Billy rolls his eyes. “I’ll _behave.”  
  
_“I’d be _stupid _to let _you _near my mom, Hargrove.”  
  


_“Me?” _  
  
“A well-known romancer of the _seniors,” _Steve clarifies, grabs Billy’s arm when he starts straying, nails digging into the leather of his jacket.  
  
Billy pulls his cigarette out and stubs it on the road. Then smiles. “Hey, Mrs. Harrington!” he calls out, eyes dawdling on Steve a moment longer before he turns to face the house.  
  
Mrs. Harrington turns her head, squints a little when she catches sight of Billy. Then her gaze lands on Steve and her near-permanent frown disappears and reappears in the shape of smile lines next to her eyes and around her mouth. Billy flexes in Steve’s grasp, throwing him a toothy smirk when Steve’s forced to let go of him.   
  
He straightens out his jacket and walks over to where Mrs. Harrington’s pulling her bags out of the trunk of her car. He picks up pace with a polite ‘I’ll get that, ma’am,’ when he sees her struggling.   
  
Steve huffs with an eye roll as he comes to a stop in front of them. Aims an icy glare at Billy over his mother’s shoulder as he kisses the air beside both her cheeks. “Hi, mom.”  
  
Billy’s checking her out from behind, lips puckered into a simulation of a whistle. Mrs. Harrington’s _pretty. _With long curly hair, a shade darker than Steve’s, and round green eyes. But Billy’s too _busy _ogling her curves to care. Fucking _horndog. _  
  
Steve draws apart from his mother and steps away, a hand on her back to keep her close and out of Billy’s _ambitious _reach. “Uh. This is Billy,” he says, gesturing for Billy with a rushed wave of his hand. “Hargrove. He’s a. Friend?”  
  
Billy smiles, licks over his lips and puts one of her bags down so he can shake her hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Harrington,” he says, voice dropped too low, too husky. Steve wants to _punch _him. “Steve’s mentioned a coupl’a things about you but never how beautiful you are.”  
  
Mrs. Harrington smiles back, a little too stiff for someone coming up against Billy’s coquettish nature. Steve has to hand it to her though; she is_ trying_ to be polite when she gives Billy’s hand a single shake before pulling away. “Thank you,” she says. “He’s failed to mention you though.”  
  
Steve huffs a nasal laugh, glancing away. Billy’s not sure if it’s because of her blatant disregard for his advances or if he’s just mocking what his mom said. Because Billy’s been here for a couple of months, would’ve gotten the news that Steve’s parents were in town if they even had time to be.  
  
“Yeah,” Steve shrugs under the judgement in her eyes. “Billy hasn’t been in town for long. We really need to go. We have school.”  
  
Mrs. Harrington nods. “Be careful,” she says to Steve. Sounds like she means _be careful of him. _Because of course that’s what she means. She’s always been cautious about who her golden boy hangs out with. Only allowed him near prissy girls and kempt boys whose parents are either close relatives or just acquaintances who fit Steve’s social status. “You can leave those here,” she says to Billy, referring to her luggage. “I’ll have my driver take them in.”  
  
Billy puts the suitcases down almost instantly.   
  
“Nice to meet you, Bobby.”  
  
_“Billy,”_ Billy corrects. Scowls indignantly. He isn’t used to women being _immune _to his charms. “Likewise.”   
  
Once she disappears into the house, Steve looks at Billy from over his car. “Happy?”  
  
“Fuck you, Harrington,” Billy huffs, swinging the door open. “Just a little traumatized by what went down last night. Can’t work my magic. I’ll be hale n’ hearty in no time and your old lady will be beggin’ for a piece o’this.”  
  
Steve rolls his eyes, ducking into the driver’s seat. Starts the car up and reverses out of the driveway. Billy sinks down in his seat and makes the leather squeak, which _apparently,_ makes Steve snort. “You’re fucking five,” Billy spits.  
  
He presses a mud-crusted boot against the dashboard and opens the window as he bends a slip of gum into his mouth. “Who is this _Murray _guy anyway?” he asks, chewing noisily.   
  
“Journalist turned investigator,” Steve answers, “Barb’s parents hired him to find her. Seatbelt.”  
  
“And _that _worked out so well, they find her?” Billy snorts, ignoring the order. They reach for the radio at the same time, fingers momentarily brushing before they both pull back. Steve clears his throat, reaches for the radio again as Billy pretends to fix his earring, adamantly ignoring the tingle Steve’s touch left in its wake.  
  
Once Steve plays his shitty music, Billy grabs the pile of cassettes in the pocket box and sits back, smacking his mouth before kissing his teeth. He switches cassettes, waits, scrunches his face up as he gives Steve a judgemental look. “Duran Duran, Harrington? Seriously?” he pulls the cassette out and throws it out the window.  
  
“Hey! What the _fuck, _man?” Steve shouts, voice going with the wind.   
  
Billy puts in the next. Pulls it out, tosses it out the window. Steve reaches to salvage the rest. “Eyes on the road, Steve,” Billy murmurs, putting in the next cassette. He nods his head, scowls, eye squinting with a hum. “Not bad,” he goes for the eject button but Steve slaps his hand before he can press down.   
  
Billy tries again, Steve grabs his hand and shoves it off. “Fuck off.”  
  
Billy reaches one more time before Steve pinches the eject button tightly and _rips it right out._  
  
He looks at Billy, gives him a smile as he throws the button out the window. Billy huffs a laugh, licking over his mouth as he looks ahead. “You just broke a part of your car, nothin’ to be smug about, rich boy.”  
  


“Next’ll be your face if you’re gonna keep messing around,” Steve answers quietly.   
  
Billy shifts, blows a bubble. “Gettin’ authoritative?” he asks, voice getting all sorts of deep, “Sexy. You’re gettin’ me all hot under the collar, Harrington.”  
  
Steve clears his throat, not sparing Billy a single glance as he adjusts his position.  
  
“Thought your parents don’t visit much,” Billy states after a couple of minutes of silence.   
  
“They’re mostly out of town. First it was just dad but then he _cheated_ and mom stopped trusting him,” Steve replies casually.  
  
“So the place is yours all year ’round?” the question’s tailed with a _pop _of his gum.  
  
“Yeah. Except when they’re in town. Which is like, a week every three months or something.”  
  
“How d’you get by?” Billy asks, for once sounding a little less uninterested. He lolls his head to the side, eyeing him. Steve can feel it against his skin like the searing heat of the sun. His chest does a thing.   
  
He keeps his eyes on the road, shrugging with the casualness he so desperately needs right now. “It’s just one week. It’ll pass.”  
  
Billy’s laugh leaves him unsolicited, rings in the air, loud and chopped off. Steve isn’t sure if he should laugh along. “You’re such a fuckin’ idiot,” Billy says, laugh dying down.   
  
He nods off a little while later. Steve feels stupid for slowing down at the potholes. _Knows _Billy would intentionally speed had their roles been reversed.  
  
Murray’s house (if you can even call it that) comes into view half an hour later. Steve pulls over and pokes Billy’s shoulder. “Hey. Get up, man,” he leans over the console to push the passenger door open. “You’re drooling all over my seat, Hargrove. _Get up.”  
  
_Billy creaks an eye open slowly, slaps a hand against Steve’s cheek to push his face away. “How lon’ave I been sleepin’?”   
  
“Like. Thirty minutes,” Steve answers. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”  
  
Billy sits up, clears his throat of disuse. He rubs a hand over his jaw and up to comb his fingers through his hair. “Why does this fucktard live in a tin?” he asks once his sight clears.   
  
“Dunno.”  
  
Billy relaxes into his seat, fingers interlaced on his stomach. Extends his legs as far as they’d go and crosses them at the ankles. He’s clearly fixing to stay in the car. Steve groans. “Oh my _god. _You’re impossible. Look, I don’t wanna be here any more than you do. Can you be a bit willing just until we find out what the hell’s going on? Then I’ll be out of your hair and you can go on your peachy way.”  
  
Billy exhales heavily. “Any freaky supernatural shit and I’m out, y’hear me, Harrington?”  
  
“Yeah, okay. Whatever.”  
  
Steve’s the one who knocks. “Nancy says he’s…” he trails off, moving his forefinger in circles near his temple. “Not all there.”  
  
He doesn’t have to look at Billy to know he’s rolling his eyes on the tut of his tongue. “Wheeler fucks her stalker. Think her opinion’s valid?”  
  
Steve doesn’t have the chance to answer, the door before them giving a metallic creak as it swings open. Then they’re both staring into the muzzle of a rifle. And despite it all, Steve’s lips crook into a self-satisfied smirk as he lifts his hands in defense. He looks at Billy from his peripheral, brow lifting. “You were saying?”  
  
Billy tongues the inside of his cheek, all waspish, eyes lifting from the muzzle to the man Steve assumes is _Murray Bauman_. “Y’gonna put that down?”  
  
“Not really,” the man answers. “Name?”  
  
“Definitely somethin’ better than _Murray Bauman. _How much did your folks hate you t–” Steve elbows Billy before he can finish that sentence. “Billy Hargrove.”  
  
“Steve Harrington.”  
  
Murray keeps them at gunpoint even as he steps back and lets them inside. “Who sent you here?”  
  
“Hopper,” Steve replies, hands still lifted. “Chief Jim Hopper. Said you probably know something about. Well, everything.”  
  
Finally, Murray puts the rifle down and throws himself on his one-seater. “Be specific.”  
  
“About the uh– Upside Down,” Steve’s looking around the place with barely hidden superiority in his eyes. Billy plops down on the couch opposite from Murray with a sigh as Steve goes on, “El closed the gate. Everything outside is supposed–”  
  
“To be dead, yes,” Murray finishes. “Those things still going bump in the night?” he takes a big swig of his bottle of vodka and leans forward to pass it to Billy when Billy holds his hand out.  
  
Steve sits down next to Billy, as far away as possible from him. “Yeah,” he answers. “Hargrove killed a couple.”  
  
Murray’s eyes go to Billy, who grins, all teeth and hubris. “Got slime on my favorite shoes,” he plays exasperated.   
  
Murray keeps looking at him, expression inscrutable. Makes Steve blink and look between them curiously. Billy looks just as confused, his grin losing width and his fingers tightening on the bottle in his hand.   
  
“Interesting,” Murray finally says. Steve doubts he’s talking about the monster situation. Then he looks back at Steve. “If Jim thinks the powers that be have anything to do with it, I can assure him he’s wrong.”  
  
“So, what? They’re growing on trees?” Steve shoots back.  
  
Murray laughs, a throaty thing that makes his shoulders shake. “You two are a _pair,” _he says. “What was your name?”  
  
“Steve,” Steve replies, frowning at the irrelevance.   
  
_“Steve!” _Murray cries out, throwing his head back. Steve gets why Nancy called him crazy now. “I’ve heard of you, Steve.”  
  
“Yeah uh, probably from Nancy–”   
  
Murray snaps his fingers and points at him, cutting him short. “Nancy,” he echoes in an exaggerated singsong. “That girl turned you _inside out, _didn’t she?” The fucker sounds _amused.   
  
_Beside him, Billy can’t help but look at Steve, barely glimpses the surprise-doused pain flashing across his features before he schools his expression. The way his jaw locks and his throat bobs.   
  
“But there’s more to you than a failed puppy love,” Murray carries on, unaffected by the vice grip of tension on Steve’s whole fucking _being. _“Let me guess. No parents, big house?”  
  
Steve _sags. _He blinks at Murray twice in a row, glare _acidic. _Billy doesn’t bother acting incurious. He’s never seen Steve this pissed off. This _scared. _Not even when he was sitting astride his body beating the fuck out of him.   
  
“Let’s try…” Murray taps his forefinger against his head like he’s thinking up a base theory to further tear Steve open. “A better sibling with more potential?” he asks, then tuts his tongue and shakes his head. “No. No, not that.”  
  
Billy chugs from his bottle and gets comfortable, spreading his legs and settling down to prepare for the clusterfuck about to unfold.   
  
“Ah-hah. Unfaithful parent?” Murray asks. And Billy _knows _that. Steve told him less than an hour ago. Tedious. Billy wants to roll his eyes at how _obvious _the observation is. “The girl cheating twisted the knife in the wound?” _Oh._  
  
Steve’s chin juts out. Stubborn.   
  
“That’s besides the abandonment issues,” Murray murmurs the last two words, like he’s just _starting _to list off Steve’s _diagnosis results, _“the emotional illiteracy. My guess, and _I dare say it, _is negligent parents who are _so _soaked up in their problems, they never taught you how to deal with yours.”  
  
Steve tongues the inside of his cheek, staring at a crack in the wall behind Murray’s one-seater. He wants to tell him to shut the hell up and keep his nose where it belongs. But he doesn’t trust his voice. Instead, he takes a deep breath and swallows. Knows Billy heard the quaver in his breath. Knows he heard his throat working around sudden dryness.   
  
“And now your feelings aren’t only a burden on you,” Murray shakes his head as he says it, faking _sympathy. _“No, no. Now you’re just a minor character in everyone’s story, even your own.”  
  
“Man, shut the fuck up,” Billy says, aloof and low.  
  
Steve would’ve appreciated it more if _Billy_ shut the fuck up and made himself scarce. He didn’t need the reminder that someone else’s listening in.  
  
Murray lingers on Steve for a second longer before he averts his gaze to Billy. “You. Now _you’re_ a little more complicated.”  
  
Billy laughs breathlessly, like he can’t believe the gall of this man. “You’re a fucking joke.”  
  
“Oh, and there it is, ladies and gentlemen and all whom it may concern,” Murray motions for Billy, a tad too theatrical. Quieter, he says, “The infamous coping mechanism.”  
  
Billy shakes his head, lips twisted into a wry, lopsided smile. Murray tilts his head and points a finger in the air, vaguely gesturing for Billy’s jaw. “Fell down the stairs?”  
  
Billy goes completely still. Steve doesn’t even _chance _a glance his way. He could go right now. He could excuse himself for a smoke or a piss and spare Billy the utter humiliation of having someone watch as his skeletons are getting dragged out the closet. But a part of Steve, a sadistic part that’s still seeking revenge in any way possible, pins him down and tells him to stay the fuck still and _listen. Rejoice. _Fair and square. An eye for an eye and a secret for a fucking secret.  
  
“Strict father?” Murray looks pleased with himself when Billy’s hand clenches into a fist on his lap, fingers of his other hand flexing around the neck of his bottle.  
  
“Ex-military,” Steve provides before he can stop himself. “Max told me,” he mutters when Billy looks daggers at him.  
  
“You’re not as fucking smart as you think you are,” Billy spits at Murray.   
  
“Oh, I’m not smart,” Murray endorses calmly. “_Observant, _yes. And you? You’re just a little... boy... hidden inside a _thick shell, _aren’t you? Dulled by years and years and _years_–”

“You know,” Billy cuts in. He feels hot under two expectant pairs of eyes, wants to fucking pluck them out of the skulls they’re burrowed in. His heart’s beating a thousand beats a second. He stands his ground, swallows the bile in his throat as he sits up. “There’s a shitload of stuff on my bucket list. Havin’ a follicly challenged shit-stain who probably hasn’t changed his fit since his whore of a wife did herself a goddamn favor and fucked outta here tell _me _how pitiful _my _life is when he’s hangin’ around with a bottle of alcohol in one hand and his dysfunctional _cock_ in the other, _isn’t,” _he grits his teeth on his slow utterance of the last word. “One of them.”  
  
Murray blinks, taken aback.   
  
“Touch a chord, old man?” Billy questions.  
  
A small, treacherous smile tugs Steve’s lips up.  
  
“So, let’s strike a deal. Stop runnin’ your mouth and give us the info we need,” Billy lifts a hand, palm supine, “Or. I shove my fist down your fuckin’ throat and rip those _observant _vocal folds o’yours right out,” he holds his other hand up, weighing the options out. “Easy way, hard way. Your call.”  
  
Murray drums his fingernails against the armrest, for once shutting up. He doesn’t look browbeat, and they all know it’s an empty threat anyway. But Murray sighs and plays along, stops the little mind game of his. “I’ll start the cameras,” he says, bringing himself to his feet.  
  
Billy’s smile turns from murderous to _charming. _“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he coos.   
  
Steve’s quiet beside him. Hopes that his quietness will make him camouflage, maybe make him fucking _disappear. _Because he’s not _ready _for the derisive comments Billy’s fated to throw his way.   
  
“I’d offer my study, but there wasn’t a point last time,” Murray says to the two of them. “You may have the guest room.”  
  
“What?” Steve asks. “No, man. It’s still early. We’re not sleeping over.”  
  
“And I’m being watched so I’m not going to risk letting you come back tomorrow,” Murray answers simply. “Stay, the cameras roll overnight, and you get to see the footage tomorrow. Leave, and come back in a month.”  
  
Steve looks at Billy. “Don’t look at me. I don’t give a fuck what’s goin’ on in this shit town,” he shrugs.   
  
Steve sucks the corner of his lip into his mouth and heaves a sigh from his nose. “You got a phone?”

**…**

“Harrington! Wake the _fuck up!”  
  
_Steve shoots upright in a panicked haze, choking out a breath. It takes his eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness, his mind a little more to remember where he is.  
  
Billy raises a brow at his heaving back as he tries regaining his breath. “What do you want, man?” Steve looks over his shoulder. Then his eyes flicker to where Billy’s hand’s wrapped around his dick loosely. “Fucking _seriously_, Hargrove?”   
  
“What?!” Billy exclaims, letting go to wave his arm. “I’m a hormonal teenager. Got needs and all.”  
  
Steve combs his fingers through sweaty hair and takes a deep breath. “What do you want?”  
  
“Nothing. Was jackin’ my dick mindin’ my own business and you ruined it with all your,” Billy flails, an over-the-top travesty of a seizure or something. “Wet dream?”  
  
Steve flops back down on the bed with a punched-out groan, doesn’t really vouchsafe him a response as he tries to even out his breath.   
  
“No?” Billy pushes. “Nightmares? Daddy not givin’ you pocket money? Reagan losin’ the election?”   
  
“Oh my _god_, do you _ever_ shut up?” Steve groans. “Seriously, man. Mind your own business.”  
  
“I was,” Billy says on an upstroke to his dick, groans deep in his throat. Steve flushes, feels heat stain his neck and ears. “So, nightmares?”  
  
“Can you put that away?” Steve mutters.  
  
“Why? Am I distractin’ you, pretty boy?” there’s a smug grin in Billy’s voice that makes Steve tut his tongue.  
  
“No. I just don’t trust you not to play with yourself listening to my problems.”  
  
Billy laughs out loud, reaches down and tucks himself into his boxers with a breathless ‘touché, Harrington’.  
  
Steve doesn’t say anything for a long while. “Yeah. Uh. Nightmares.”  
  
Billy heaves a breath, folds an arm behind his head. “We all get ‘em.”  
  
Lifting a brow, Steve turns to look at the silhouette of Billy’s profile. “You get nightmares?”  
  
“Yeah,” Billy responds. “Tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”  
  
Steve taps a rhythm on his midriff. “Don’t believe you.”  
  
There’s a silence on Billy’s half. One that lasts a little over 10 seconds before Billy pulls his arm from under his head and the dark shape of his pinky finger’s in Steve’s line of view. “Pinky promise,” he says, smirk tuning his voice.  
  
Steve lifts a brow. Billy can’t see him. “No.”  
  
“Oh, c’mon,” Billy forcefully hooks his pinky with Steve’s, so hard Steve thinks it’s going to break.  
  
Steve snatches his hand back. “You go first.”  
  
“Aight,” Billy mutters. “It’s a frequent nightmare, y’hear me?”  
  
“Mm.”   
  
“Ok,” Billy goes quiet for a second, like he’s getting ready to absolutely butcher his gravitas. “So I’m in bed with this bitch, right. And we’re about’a go at it like fucking bunnies, yeah?”  
  
“_Jeesus_ Christ,” Steve rolls his eyes.   
  
“And I reach down to pull myself out,” Billy sniffles, faking distress. “And I’m expectin’ my big, hard–”  
  
Steve huffs.  
  
“–meaty cock. And what do I find?”  
  
“Please shut up.”  
  
The shadow of Billy’s pinkie moves into Steve’s view again, wiggling lewdly. “This small, Harrington.” Steve slaps his hand away, making him snort. “Your turn.”  
  
“Not after that, it isn’t.”  
  
“Oh, come on, nothin’s worse than my microscopic penis.”  
  
“You don’t _have_ a microscopic penis.”  
  
Billy turns his head to look at him. Steve doesn’t need light to know his tongue’s hanging out like a dog’s. “Yeah?” He asks. “You been looking?”  
  
“No. You wave that thing around like a feather duster.”  
  
They go quiet.  
  
“Speakin’ of getting off,” Billy starts again. “Could really use the high right now.”  
  
Steve’s skin turns feverish faster than physically possible. “Ri-Right. Right. I can go.”  
  
“We’re not fuckin’ ankle-biters,” Billy laughs. “Just mean. If you wanna. You can go for it too. Won’t look at all your bits and pieces.”  
  
Steve’s fucking staggered. He’s not sure how to respond. He’s done it before, with Tommy and even _Carol. _They were on the cusp of puberty and their hormones were all over the place. It was comfortable. They were friends.  
  
Billy isn’t his friend, and this isn’t prepubescence.  
  
“I uh,” Steve exhales, heavy and humid. “Can’t. Not right now.”  
  
“What? Can’t get it up or something?” Billy jokes.  
  
“Yeah. Or something,” Steve replies. “It’s hard to. After bad dreams.”  
  
Billy doesn’t say anything, mostly for the lack of an appropriate response.  
  
“Go for it,” Steve says.  
  
“You sure? Won’t get jealous?”  
  
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Steve replies amiably, closing his eyes when Billy shifts and pulls the cover over his lower body.   
  
Then his breathing gets heavier, faster. His other hand goes above his head, grips the metal bedpost tightly.   
  
Steve isn’t sure what to do. He tries focusing on anything else. Anything other than Billy’s quiet moans, his _ah-ah-ah’s _scattered over a long line of filthy words. Anything other than the slick sound of Billy’s hand working over his cock.  
  
Steve wants to turn the lights on. Wants to see him when he’s not all pissy and ratty. Wants to see the indelible frown lines between his brows smoothen out with pleasure. Wants to see his cheeks color up and his lips part as he hits his high.   
  
“F-Fucking _Christ,” _Billy’s hand starts moving erratically, rusty mattress springs squeaking as he fucks into his fist. Nails scraping against the metal of the bedpost. Steve can’t breathe. Steals a glance, maybe two. Sees the outline of Billy’s throat work against a moonlit background, tendons in his neck straining as he chases his pleasure. It sends molten heat hurtling through Steve’s veins.  
  
Billy turns his head and buries his face in his bicep to muffle the drawn-out ‘_fuck, fuck,’ _and quieter, ‘_me’ _that leaves him as he comes.  
  
He lets go of the bedpost and sags into the mattress with a blissed-out sigh. Huffs, trying to even his breathing as he stretches the soreness out of his fingers. “Plain-vanilla,” he opines quietly, voice hoarse with post-orgasmic gratification.  
  
Steve begs to differ. The heat radiating off Billy’s body's affecting his own.  
  
Billy wipes his hand on the bedspread beneath him. Falls quiet. The creaking of the ceiling fan doesn’t drown out the distant growling coming from the woods. Steve wants to sidle closer to Billy. Doesn’t.  
  
“Y’hear that?” Billy asks.  
  
“Yeah,” Steve breathes out.  
  
“My guess is a cougar. Not the _Karen Wheeler_ type.”  
  
“Denying their existence doesn’t mean they won’t tear your stupid head off,” Steve answers. Wants to move closer, just until Billy’s arm’s pressed to his. He needs the comfort almost as much as he needs his bat leaning against the bedside table next to him.  
  
“You’re scared,” Billy observes.  
  
“Don’t. Don’t do that,” Steve grits. “Any of it. Had my life picked apart once today. Don’t need this bull from you, alright?”  
  
“Jesus,” Billy mutters. “Chill out.”  
  
Then he. Pulls the blanket off him and pushes it to Steve. “More prone to nightmares when it’s cold,” he says. Turns his back to him before Steve can say anything.  
  
“Thanks,” Steve mumbles, considerably less aggressive. “Hey uh. About Murray. What he said today–”  
  
“Not doin’ this with you, Harrington,” Billy interrupts. “He’s just a bored deadbeat. Wheeler was right when she called him nuts.”  
  
Steve nods. “Yeah.”  
  
“Yeah. Go to sleep.”

**…**

“You’re telling me they’re coming from the lab?” Steve asks. “Don’t you have a camera inside?”  
  
“He lives in a metal can,” Billy murmurs, eyes fixed on the screen before him. “Don’t think he can afford a camera inside.”  
  
Murray waves at Billy like ‘there’s your answer’. But then he gives a proper explanation. “Tried to last year, the chemical particles ruined my cameras.”  
  
“But Hopper’s been there,” Steve says. “_I’ve been there. _It’s empty. There’s no way–”  
  
“Obviously, there is,” Murray cuts in, gesturing for the screen.  
  
“Are you _listening _to me?” Steve grits out.  
  
“Of course I am,” Murray answers softly. “But I think my cameras are more well-founded than you.”  
  
“How are you not dead?” Steve asks. “Like. Seriously. How has no one killed you yet? You’re so– oh my god. I can’t even–”  
  
“Didn’t you tell me they hunt in herds, Harrington?” Billy questions. “Why are there only two? You got a camera from each side or just this angle, Baldman?”  
  
“This is the only angle worth looking at,” Murray answers.  
  
Billy stands upright. “Thanks for nothing,” he says. “C’mon, Harrington. Got a bio quiz first period.”  
  
Billy grabs the half empty bottle of whiskey sitting on the counter on his way out. “For the road. And our troubles.”  
  
And. Yeah, they’ll both be needing it.

**Author's Note:**

> im semi active on [tumblr.](https://inkedplume.tumblr.com)


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